by Karleen Koen
Little Barbara Bragge dead. Alice’s first friend at court, other than Monmouth. He could not believe he sat at her funeral. He bowed his head as prayers began, noticing out of the corner of his eye Lady Saylor sitting with her beautiful daughters and son-in-law. Her head wasn’t bowed, but her eyes were closed. This woman, with her calmness and strange distant eyes, disturbed him. As if she felt him staring, she met his gaze. He felt for a moment as if he were floating in a clear river, then she looked away again. He shook himself at the shock of the simple matter of her dropping her gaze. Beyond her sat his Dutch friend, Wilhelm Lowestroft. Let us begin a mild courtship with the Hollanders, Balmoral had said. Nothing treasonous, a light flirtation merely. It seemed there was a young Protestant prince, one William of Orange, whose mother had been King Charles and York’s sister, who hated the French king, Louis. I’d like to know him better, Balmoral had smiled. Do bring our friend Lowestroft to call.
“We brought nothing into this world,” the archbishop was saying, “and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Outside in the churchyard, the coffin was lowered into a grave. “Unto almighty God we commend the soul of our sister and of her child, departed,” began the archbishop, and when the hymn was sung, Sir Thomas went to stand in a side porch and was gratified to see Balmoral leave the throng, walk forward to join him.
PRAYERS DONE, THERE remained only the throwing of handfuls of dirt upon the grave. People drifted away, walking among the gravestones and table tombs, among greening trees and around clumps of blooming snowdrops, making their way to the porch, to acknowledge Balmoral and ask of Alice.
The new Lady Knollys came up to him. Little Gracen looked the woman with rouge on her cheeks and several black patches scattered here and there. Sir Thomas nodded to her. She was a handsome minx, and she knew it.
“How is Alice?” she asked.
The despair in her eyes shocked him. No bride should look so sad. “Not well.”
“Will you tell her I asked of her? Do you know if Barbara had a farewell for me?”
“I don’t, Lady Knollys.”
He watched her turn toward someone else in the milling crowd as Lady Saylor walked forward. “How does your daughter?” she asked, no coquetry about her.
The jewels she wore were wild and strange, as if from another time, something barbaric and compelling about the stones, the gold work. If her hair had once been the gold of her children’s, it was now silver and bound in long braids pinned to her head, flowers and jewels garnishing the knots, like a woman of King Arthur’s court. Time touched her face. She did not try to hide it. Sir Thomas found himself a little afraid of her. “Still with a fever.”
“I have some claims to healing. Might I visit her?”
“The king’s physician has called twice.”
“Oh, so she is better?”
“She is not,” answered Balmoral. “She’s been bled twice and each time fainted. I like it not. I’ve seen the same on the battlefield to no good effect.”
“I have some remedies for fever, old, from my mother and her mother before that. I brought them for Mrs. Sidney. Might I call this afternoon?”
“Please,” said Balmoral, and Sir Thomas pursed his lips, noting how Balmoral spoke as if Alice were already his.
“Sir,” said Richard to Balmoral, “might I have a word with you?” He whispered the idea that had come to him about the casket of letters.
Balmoral’s mouth widened into a smile as he listened. “If you succeed, you do me a service you cannot imagine. Whatever you need is yours for this.”
“Thank you, sir.” Richard found his mother standing behind a tree with Prince Rupert, who was in the act of kissing her hand. Are they flirting? thought Richard, shocked, but then he was sidetracked, remembering that Prince Rupert, in his checkered past, had been an aide to the French soldier General Turenne.
“Elizabeth is waiting in the carriage,” Richard told his mother. He watched her settle upon a time to meet this evening with Prince Rupert, who was like a large dog wagging his tail, all but barking for Jerusalem Saylor. “I wonder if I might have a word with you before you leave?” Richard asked him when his mother was in the carriage.
“Oh, more than a word, my boy. I’m at your service for whatever you need. Now, no need to stare me down. Your mother is going to sup with me and Mrs. Hughes tonight, perfectly respectable, and you cannot fault a man for admiring a lovely woman, can you? That just wouldn’t be reasonable.”
“I’m leaving His Majesty’s service. I’m going to France. If you would be so kind, it would aid me greatly if I might have a letter of introduction to both the Prince de Condé and General Turenne. It would be a greater kindness if you’d speak to no one of this. I’ll make my intentions known at the proper time.”
“You jest. We need you.”
“I must go.”
Prince Rupert studied Richard’s face for a long moment before replying. “You’re a good soldier, well on the way to being a splendid one. Now that I think on it a little, your serving Turenne can only in its turn serve us. If I live long enough, I’ll see you a captain general, I do believe. No need turning red, sir. I thought it the moment I saw you attempting to drill some discipline into that lazy excuse for a troop that calls itself the queen’s bodyguard. I’ll write your letters. Good day.” He walked away but came back as if he’d remembered something. “I have a little scheme,” he said, “which your brother-in-law has invested heavily in. I’d like to present it to you.”
“I have no funds to speak of.”
“You have property that can be mortgaged.”
“I can’t think of such things today.”
“Of course you cannot. My manners are abominable. Forgive me. Good day, Captain.”
John still stood at the grave. The diggers had begun piling dirt on the coffin now that everyone had scattered to carriages or sedan chairs. The graveyard was suddenly empty. Richard went to stand beside his friend. The sound of dirt on the coffin of a loved one was a lonely sound. The least he could do was bear it with John.
SIR THOMAS HOVERED in the doorway as Lady Saylor bent over Alice, who was mumbling and thrashing about. She touched her hand to Alice’s forehead, then to her chest, straightened abruptly. “The fever’s too high. We need to put her in a bath to bring it down. At once.” Something in her voice made the hair at the back of Sir Thomas’s neck prickle, and he found himself shouting for servants. Balmoral, who had been standing behind him, walked into the bedchamber, looked down at the delirious young woman on the bed.
Jerusalem Saylor took off her rings and bracelets, ordered everyone from the room but maidservants, and bathed Alice herself. When Alice was wrapped in wool blankets and her fur cloak, her teeth chattering, Jerusalem took powder from a box she’d brought, dropped it to a touch of wine, added water, and made her swallow it. She ordered a fire built and sat before it, a trunk at her back for support, holding a shivering, bundled Alice, who moaned and trembled as if she were naked in snow. Balmoral returned, pulled a chair nearby, his eyes never leaving Alice, who slept and shook and woke to shake and sleep again.
Afternoon moved into twilight, twilight into night. Perryman came to lead Balmoral to supper and a bed for the night. Sir Thomas, told Lady Saylor had refused to leave Alice to sleep, walked into the bedchamber.
“She needs the touch, the heat, of another body,” Jerusalem said to his protests, of someone who has healing in them, she didn’t say. “Would you send round a note to Prince Rupert canceling my supper tonight?”
“Of course, dear lady.” And Sir Thomas retreated, the sight of his shivering, moaning daughter, eyes half-open, unfocused, too much for him.
Perryman, bringing wine and cheese for Jerusalem, paused in the doorway, his nostrils flaring at the scent from a candle. The fragrance was sharp in the lungs, but calming. “If I might…that is, if you would trust me, I will hold Mistress Alice for a time so that you migh
t rest,” he said.
Jerusalem’s brows rose. “Let me have your hand.” She was imperious. She held it in hers, seemed satisfied with what she felt. “Keep her pulled close, your arms wrapped tight as if she were a child.”
“Yes, I’ll do it just as you have.”
“Build the fire again to roaring.”
That done, she lay down at the foot of Alice’s bed, curling herself up like a cat, and slept for several hours, waking at midnight. She washed her face and hands and went to a window to look out at the night sky. “Perryman, come here.”
He laid Alice down, joined her at the window. “Is that someone there, against the tree?” Under a tree in the garden was a shadowed figure.
“Yes, madam.”
“Who is it?”
“He, ah, returned with me from Whitehall when I delivered my message to Prince Rupert, asking that I trouble no one with his arrival. He is, ah, a friend, concerned for Mistress Alice’s welfare.”
“Why not invite him in?”
“I did so, madam. He refused, requested that I, ah, trouble no one with news of his presence. How does she?”
“Continues to toss and fret.”
Together, they gave Alice more fever powder. Jerusalem arranged herself to hold Alice as Perryman made the fire spark and roar again. Toward morning, Alice began to perspire. She tried to throw off blankets, but Jerusalem stopped her, wrapped her as if she were a baby in swaddling. When morning light pierced the window and warmed the room with light, Alice fell into a quieter sleep. There was dampness on her forehead and around her mouth, which Jerusalem touched with a finger and smelled, then nodded as if satisfied.
“Is the fever broken?” It was Balmoral.
“Yes. Will you call for the servants to carry her to bed? Perryman, we’ll need to warm the bed first, and we’ll need a hot brick wrapped in flannel at her feet. When that brick cools, it must be replaced with another hot one.”
Sir Thomas appeared in the doorway, plump, vibrant in a robe of blue and yellow, a red silk cap, embroidered slippers. “Is she better? They tell me she’s better!”
“A bit,” said Jerusalem. “I’m going to leave my fever powders with you. You must give them to her three times this day. There’s also another candle in my bag, which has a special scent. I’m going to ask that you light it and allow it to burn to nothing.”
Sir Thomas turned on his heel and walked blindly downstairs into his great chamber, gasping now and again at tears he couldn’t stop. Alice was never ill. The sight of her high fever combined with Barbara’s dying had left him as emotional as a woman. It was only now that he could admit how afraid he had been of Alice dying this night. At the sound of Jerusalem descending the stairs, he wiped his face and walked into the hall. Balmoral was with her, Perryman holding one of his arms to aid him.
“May I give you breakfast, dear lady?” asked Sir Thomas.
“No, thank you.”
Balmoral said, “My carriage is outside. I have the honor of escorting her back to Whitehall.” To Sir Thomas’s eyes, he was the one who now looked ill and feverish, too thin and waxen. “I wish to be called if her condition should worsen; otherwise I will rest this day.”
“If this young man”—Jerusalem turned her eyes on Perryman—“cares for her as well as he did last night, she will not worsen. You have a most excellent servant, Sir Thomas.”
As the front door closed behind his guests, Sir Thomas turned on his footman. “She didn’t offer you a place with her, did she?”
“She did not, sir.”
“Well, if she does, you’re to tell me at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
IN THE CARRIAGE, Balmoral leaned back, closed his eyes. He made a sound, something between a grunt of pain and a sigh. “I don’t wish that girl to die.”
“She won’t, not now.”
Balmoral opened his eyes. “Was she near death?”
“Yes. The physician attending her was most unskilled.”
“I thought so, too.”
“She needs to leave London.”
Balmoral didn’t answer, kept his eyes upon her face.
“I want to take her back with me to Tamworth. Would you allow it?”
“Why should I?”
“I want to guard against the fever returning and let her sleep in the sunlight, under a window where roses and fennel bloom. I think she requires great quiet at the moment, requires being away from this”—a sweep of her hand indicated London and the court—“from memories too cruel yet to bear. She wished to die; you mustn’t forget that. She tried to will it.”
“Why put yourself out so?” He was truculent, combative.
“My son has always spoken of her with high regard. I believe she has done him some kindnesses, as, indeed, have you.” My son stood in the night outside, watching over her, she did not say; for that I would do anything. “And I like to mend things when I see them broken.”
“Broken?”
“She’s broken here—” She touched near her heart. “I would not like to see that spread to here—” She touched her head.
“It’s her father’s decision.”
Jerusalem didn’t bother to reply.
“I want her well by May.”
“For your wedding?”
“For our wedding.”
They were silent. When the carriage stopped outside Holbein Gate and the door was opened, Jerusalem leaned forward, touched Balmoral on his hand, making him start. No one touched a duke, just as no one touched a king. “You may not have a drop of wine, not a drop. I have second sight. I see things.”
“Am I dying?”
“We’re all dying.” She descended the carriage and walked into the crowd.
IN HIS CLOSET, Balmoral opened the cabinet where his sweet sherry from Portugal lay in its precious Venetian crystal decanter. He liked the first cup to be sherry. After that he cared not. The siren called to him. He closed the cabinet, sat in a chair, thought about being alive to marry this young woman he found he’d grown more than fond of, disobeying him, fetching babies, grieving too hard, walking into rivers, throwing fevers. He thought about secret treaties and Buckingham’s betrayals and the fact that if King Charles had agreed to anything with the Church of Rome—if York was indeed Catholic—then Buckingham, king of the dissidents, attracting the odd sects like a candle did moths, would be necessary. He thought about Richard’s idea to steal the casket of letters King Charles had written to Madame. With that in his hands, the king would be in his hands, too. He thought about the young prince of the Dutch House of Orange, William, strange, he’d heard, asthmatic, brilliant. He thought about the dark angel Ange. What betrayals was he plotting in that twisted mind of his? He will try to kill me, he thought. No doubt of that. How? If Richard brought the letters, there was no need of Ange. I will kill him first, he thought, and smiled. Odd, here at the end, that life had never been more interesting.
THAT EVENING, RICHARD walked into laughter, faces softened by candlelight, people enjoying themselves with talk and good food. Prince Rupert rose from his chair, a chicken leg in his hand. “Surely it’s not time for you to bear her off?”
“I regret that it is, sir.”
Prince Rupert, primed with wine, bowed to Jerusalem. “Lovely lady, we’re not ended with you. You’ll go riding with me tomorrow, yes?” He put his hand on his mistress’s shoulder. “We’ll go to Peg’s for supper, perhaps. She has a cozy little villa in Chelsea. Saylor, I’m trying to convince your mother to move closer to London, lease a little place outside of town, Marylebone or Chelsea. We need to see more of her. I want her to pose for an engraving. She fobs me off.”
The thought of his mother anywhere near court made Richard smile. It would be like trying to tether some creature of the forest. He thought of the queen’s little fox, the creature’s dainty hesitancy, quick, wild ways. Did the fox dream at night of trees and midnight rambles? His mother was not made for court. She would dream of Tamworth and its hillock, its bees, its fields
of clover.
He led her to the queen’s apartments, deserted of company. Even during the divorce rumors, it had not been this quiet, this empty of people. Everyone who was not on duty to the queen was on the west side of the palace, where the king was, where Renée was.
He knocked upon the queen’s bedchamber, and her old nurse opened the door, led his mother inside; he waited for a time, until the door reopened and his mother reappeared. She gave a great sigh when they walked out of the palace, into the dark of the courtyards. She stood a moment, looking up at stars. Richard watched her profile.
“Take me to see Pharaoh.”
At the mews, she stood in the dark of the walkway between stalls, listening. She was very sensitive to animals. Richard opened Pharaoh’s stall. He could see the dark bulk of the horse lying down, Walter asleep on his belly. Pharaoh lifted his head, snorted, and Jerusalem knelt down, kissed his sleek neck.
“Beautiful boy, prince of horses, how are you?” she asked, paying him his homage. She wrapped arms around his neck to hug him. The horse nuzzled her shoulder, blew softly through his nostrils. As a child, Richard had believed his mother talked to animals. He still did.
“I’ll sleep here tonight.”
“Mother—”
“Come for me at dawn.” She settled down beside Walter like a stable boy herself, flipping off shoes, pulling off her necklace, unscrewing earrings and dropping them in the straw as if they were nothing.