Dark Angels

by Karleen Koen

  Richard sat in a high-backed chair near the windows with Alice still in his arms. The smell of tansy and thyme wafted in, and he breathed it like balm. Alice trembled, and he pulled her closer to him, wrapped his arms tight around her, willing her his own strength, put his face against her hair, fierceness, protectiveness, young lions in him.

  Poll came to drape a cloak over Alice. House servants and some of the troopers were staggering forward through the door, carrying in pieces of a great bed from upstairs, its columns, its frame, its headboard massive.

  “In the sun, facing the windows,” his mother commanded. The chamber was mostly empty, its furniture burned for firewood during the civil war. A mattress was carried in, and as soon as the bed was put together, servants pulled on sheets that had been dried in the sun, that smelled of green grass and clover. Jerusalem scattered catnip and chamomile among the sheets, atop the pillowcases, so Alice would sleep well.

  In another moment, Richard placed Alice in among the sheets, and the moment her head touched the pillow, she closed her eyes, settling into a deep sleep. She opened her eyes once, the next day, to see Poll sitting near and Richard standing by the bed, looking down on her. I love you, she wanted to say, but sleep was calling her back down, and anyway, it was best that she not say that, and any thought made the ache in her head threaten its murder and mayhem; there was something she had to be ashamed of, something she had to feel, but she closed her eyes and went away again into the cool dark.

  IN THE FORECOURT, Richard knelt for his mother’s blessing. The old-fashioned gesture surprised several of the troopers, and one by one they took off their hats, bowed their heads also, thoughts of home, of mothers far away, in their minds. There was something in his action belonging to that time before the war, and in spite of themselves, the soldiers were touched by it.

  “God in His mercy bless you and keep you and hold you to His bosom. May His will be done, may you follow in it, may your journey be safe. God save the king and all who serve him. In Christ’s holy name, amen,” said Jerusalem.

  Richard stood, leaned down, kissed her, was in his saddle and turning his horse to face the journey before she could speak again. The child Annie came out from her hiding place and stood beside Jerusalem. They watched until the horses were over the horizen. Jerusalem went to her stillroom, looked through different books, containing all the recipes and healing wisdom that mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers had known and passed down. A small white owl, an embroidered hood over its head, slept on a stand. Poll had screamed at the sight of it leaving to hunt last night, its wings spread in a great arc.

  Annie wandered among the drying herbs and crocks of jellies. “What’s her name, the sleeping lady?” she asked Jerusalem.

  “Alice Verney. She’s a friend of Baron Saylor’s.”

  ALICE WOKE AT dusk. A thin child she didn’t know, all legs and dark eyes, saw and ran from the room. Nan Daniell appeared after a time, carefully carrying a pewter mug on a tray. In the mug was a posset, eggs and sugar mixed in with mulled wine. Poll helped Alice to sit up, and Alice drank it down, saying when she’d finished, “Another, please.” After a second one brought in by Susannah, Jerusalem’s most trusted servant, Alice felt sleepy again. “Do I hear music?” she asked.

  “Lady Saylor is playing her flute,” said Susannah.

  “What day is it?”

  “That I don’t know,” answered Poll. “But April is here.”

  “‘This April, with his stormy showers doth make the earth yield pleasant flowers. Purge well therein, for it is good to help thy body and cleanse thy blood,’” quoted Susannah. It was a rhyme from Tusser’s Almanac, a bible for those in the country. Poll and Alice, who’d always lived in the city, stared at her uncomprehendingly.

  April meant Maundy Thursday, thought Alice, the day when the king would wash the feet of beggars in memory of the Last Supper, when the Christ told his disciples, Love ye one another as I have loved you. It meant Palm Sunday, the last Sunday in Lent, the beginning of the Easter week, Good Friday, and Easter itself, death and resurrection. I’d like to die, thought Alice, and she closed her eyes.

  A PARISIAN TAILOR turned from Walter, stepped back, pleased with his work.

  “There you have it, monsieur,” he said. “Your brother looks like the young lord he is.”

  Walter stood in a new satin coat, new stockings, new shirt, new shoes with silver buckles. His hair was trimmed and pulled back into a neat tail, the way Richard wore his. Richard, too, was in everything new, out of his uniform, with satin coat and lace at his sleeves. There was a cameo in the lace at his throat. The coats they wore were robin’s-egg blue, and it suited their eyes. Their breeches were fine black wool. They might have belonged to any noble family in France or England, might have indeed been brothers, both thin, both fair, both blue eyed.

  “I beg you, monsieur,” said the tailor. “One patch on the cheek of my young lord, and it will be perfect.”

  “What is he saying?” asked Walter.

  “He wants to put a patch on your cheek,” answered Richard.

  “Please have him do it.”

  Richard gestured for the tailor to do so, and the man rummaged in a small box, came forward with a circle moistened on one side with mastic. He placed it high on Walter’s cheekbone, near his eye. “Perfection,” cried the tailor. “And you, monsieur, you must have one, only one, near those ice cold eyes. The ladies will be at your mercy.”

  Outside, bells in the towers of churches in Paris began ringing. It was their custom to ring on the hour, one of the beauties of the city. Walter didn’t know himself in this grand suit, but he knew he looked well. Captain Saylor looked magnificent. There was no other word for it. Madame Neddie had liked the word, using it for the boys and men whose faces were strong and chiseled, the way the captain’s was. On one cheek was a black patch, not a circle like Walter’s, but a star. With the black of the patch, near the blue of Richard’s eyes, with the blue satin coat and the black breeches, he looked more beautiful to Walter’s eyes than anyone he had ever seen.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” said Richard, as they walked across one of the stone bridges that spanned the Seine River. Walter tried not to stare at the clusters of priests, of nuns in their black habits with their black wimples, walking the streets just as anyone else. One never saw a nun in England and very few Romish priests. “Now, remember,” said Richard. “You have to do nothing other than keep him occupied. Nothing more. Do you understand me?”

  He meant Walter didn’t have to kiss or touch or be touched. I need your help only to amuse him for a time, like talking with the customers at Neddie’s, nothing more, Captain Saylor had explained carefully. You do not have to do this for me, Walter. You may say no. He didn’t understand that Walter would do anything for him. Leap off this bridge, he could have said, and Walter would have done it.

  “We’ll see if we meet him in the different gaming hells,” said Richard. “If not, we’ll call at the Palais Royal tomorrow and see if he’s still there. I intend to tell him that your name is Stephen Saylor and that you are my cousin.”

  But Beuvron was in the third gaming house they tried. “That’s him, across the room, playing dice,” Richard told Walter. “Let him see us. Don’t try to attract his attention. You’ve never heard a word about this man. He is simply some friend of mine you are meeting for the first time. I’ll play cards. You stand behind my chair.”

  “Does he speak English?”

  “Yes.”

  Richard found a table ending a game, sat down, put coins out. Walter stood behind his chair, taking the wine a servant brought and placing it before Richard as if he were his personal servant. They attracted attention, the two strangers, both with pale hair pulled back when every other man in the place, other than servants, wore heavy, curly wigs. Yet their patches and handsome satin coats proclaimed them somebody, and somebody not afraid to be distinctive, something Parisians always noticed.

  “Lieutenant S
aylor, I thought that you.” Beuvron walked across the room. “You’re out of uniform. Will you be hanged, or have you quit?”

  “Very likely hanged. How are you?”

  “Well.”

  Beuvron glanced at Walter. “My cousin,” said Richard. “Stephen Saylor.”

  “How do you do?” Beuvron said.

  “He doesn’t speak French.”

  “A handsome lad, your cousin.” Beuvron switched to English. “How do you do.”

  Walter held out his hand. “Stephen Saylor.”

  “Are you in Paris long?”

  “A few days,” answered Richard.

  Beuvron glanced again at Walter, said in French, “So you haven’t come to see me?”

  “Not this time.”

  “I don’t know whether to be relieved or sorrowful. Let me buy your supper tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps. I’ve come to gamble.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  They played cards for several hours, coins going back and forth, others joining and leaving the game. Beuvron gossiped of the court, was in good spirits, talkative and pleasant, so that Richard learned what he needed—Monsieur was not at the Palais Royal at the moment, and neither was Beuvron. Richard put down cards, picked up coins. “It grows late. Let me get this lad to bed. It was good to see you, Beuvron. Good-bye.”

  “Saylor, wait. I insist. Let me give you supper tomorrow.”

  “You mean today.” Outside, dawn would begin to light the dark in just a few hours.

  “I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “If you insist. Where?”

  Beuvron gave a street’s name, and Richard and Walter walked out into the early morning, to the monastery at which Richard stayed whenever he was in France. He stood in the doorway of the single cell in which Walter would sleep. “I will make my attempt today. I won’t need you to distract Beuvron after all. He isn’t living at the palace. Instead, you’ll help me. First we’ll reconnoiter. If all looks well, I’ll proceed.”

  “Reconnoiter. What does that mean?”

  “It means to check every gate and door, every watchman and guard. It means to know what you’re going into, so nothing takes you too much by surprise.”

  “He has a kind face.”

  “Who?”

  “Your friend.”

  “I suppose. Sleep well, Walter. I’ll be waking you in a few short hours.”

  THEY WALKED TO the Palais Royal, Monsieur’s palace in Paris. He and Walter no longer wore satin coats, but the sober brown of tradesmen or merchants. They were Frenchmen, out to enjoy the palace gardens. When Richard was satisfied that all was well, he walked into the stables, into an empty stall, and changed into the Palais Royal servant’s livery he had stolen months ago, while Walter served as lookout. Outside again, he nodded to Walter, who gave him the package he carried and took the clothes Richard had changed out of. Richard guided him to a bench. “Sit here. Stay here. If night falls and I haven’t returned, go to the monastery, take the coins, go back to England.”

  “No—”

  “Yes. Balmoral will need to know, and I need to know you will obey.”

  “Then I will.”

  His hair loosed, swinging in his face, Richard walked into the palace through the servants’ entrance, the bulky package under one arm, whistling as he walked up the stairs, nodding to other servants he saw, but never doing more than glancing at them. He found Beuvron’s old chamber and from there traced his steps to the chamber of the translator who labored over King Charles’s letters to his sister. He opened the door, ready with an apology—his being new, not knowing all the chambers of the palace, excuse me for disturbing you, sir—but there was no one inside. He walked to the desk.

  Quill pens arranged neatly, their tips, when he touched them, dry.

  No letters spread out to be read and translated. No small brown leather casket to hold them anywhere in sight.

  He searched the chamber. He searched again. He sat down in a chair to think. It wasn’t here. Did he risk looking in nearby rooms? What were the chances he wouldn’t be caught? The child of his brain, an identical leather casket crafted to his specifications in England, wrapped like a package, lay at his feet. There were even letters with broken seals inside, blank letters. He had wanted to write, “Greetings from His Grace the Duke of Balmoral” on each page. While I applaud your exuberance, Balmoral had said dryly, I am appalled at your stupidity. He walked into the hall, began opening doors. The rooms were empty, so he searched them. He could feel time passing. Finally, he opened a door and a man in the chamber looked up him, an eyebrow raised.

  “A thousand apologies, monsieur.” He closed the door. Instinct told him it was time to quit, time to gather up his unused casket and take it home. The mission had failed. Balmoral would not be happy. With the package back under his arm, he walked outside the palace. Walter, pacing in front of the bench, ran to him.

  “Captain—”

  “Be silent.”

  Walter followed him mutely to the stable, waited while Richard changed. Richard stood in the dark of the horse’s stall, looking down at the package. It was over. He’d failed. He returned with empty hands. No last triumph to present to the grand old man. He picked up the folded livery, which he’d keep. One never knew.

  He and Walter walked to the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris.

  They sat on a bench to watch Paris go by, nobles in their fine carriages, men on horseback, farmers on mules, magistrates from the law courts walking in their long robes, a cow herder driving cows to slaughter, groups of students, ink stains on their fingers. A stall sold rabbits, alive and dead, the dead ones hanging by their legs. A group of actors from the Commedia dell’arte set up shop near a statue in a large side plaza of the bridge. The actors wore elaborate masks and stylized costumes. Walter laughed aloud at their antics, particularly the zanni, whose baggy pants dropped at every important moment. In a moment of finality, Richard gave the packaged casket to the zanni, and the actor began an elaborate improvisation around it, and when, finally, he looked to return it, Richard and Walter had vanished.

  THAT EVENING, THEY walked to Beuvron’s for supper. So, thought Richard, walking up a stairway to the first floor of a small town house near the great medieval cathedral of Notre Dame, Balmoral’s coins brought Beuvron ease.

  Since it was the season of Lent, of Easter, Beuvron offered fish, all kinds, smoked, pickled, sautéed in butter, oysters, bread freshly baked, a jar of new butter. He had wine and champagne and port. He chatted happily, but Richard said little, and Walter less than that, even though he felt Beuvron’s eyes on him often.

  “You must see Versailles,” Beuvron said at the end of the evening, when the champagne and wine were drunk and Richard refused another bottle.

  “We return tomorrow.”

  “What a shame. You should stay for Palm Sunday; let your cousin view it. There will be processions, a blessing of the palms, extraordinary to see, flowers everywhere, the singing of the Gospels. You can show him how we wicked Catholics celebrate the resurrection of our Lord.”

  “Another time.” Richard rose, walked to a window, putting his head out to take a breath of air. He’d wanted to end with a triumph. Now he brought failure along with the news he was leaving the army. Balmoral would not be pleased.

  Glancing at Richard still at the window, his back to them, Beuvron put his hand out, touched Walter’s knee very lightly, nothing disrespectful or forward in the gesture. His face had changed from its pleasant, heedless expression. He looked almost grave. “You’re very beautiful, young Stephen. You belong here. Not there. You would be happy here. No bonds against being as you are. Do you even understand me?”

  Walter didn’t answer, stood, and Richard turned around. The moment passed.

  He did understand, more than Beuvron realized, but he’d never leave Richard.

  ALICE SAT IN a chair in the sun. Tomorrow, if she was stronger, Lady Saylor would allow her to attend church. People would be wav
ing palm fronds, waiting to have their foreheads touched with ash. Perhaps in the afternoon she would sit on the hillock, a soft rise she could see in the distance, covered with huge oaks. It called to her. She longed to lie under its trees. A bird flew by, landed on the ledge of a window. It was a swallow. All the household talked of not having seen one yet, wondering who would have the good fortune to see the first swallow of spring. Alice began to weep. The weeping became Barbara’s. Perhaps you’ll be years grieving her, said Lady Saylor, and years more forgiving yourself.

  CHAPTER 44

  Balmoral stood with a dozen men at the edge of the river on what was called the Isle of Dogs, nearer the sea than London, but no real isle and no dogs; just a narrow creek eastward separated it from the mainland. Across, on the opposite bank, windmills turned, for the draining of the marshes upon which they stood. Henri Ange was there, too, looking almost bloodless, so pale was he, a streak of gray that had not been in his hair before, legs and one wrist chained to the burliest of the men. A sleek Dutch yacht had just dropped anchor.

  Ange moved forward as best he could, the trooper with him. Two men on the deck leaped into the water, climbed through the mud toward him, one slightly behind the other. “Miguel,” Ange said, putting his free hand on the shoulder of one of them. He touched his cheek to the man’s, said very quickly, very quietly, “Say nothing. Trust me. You’ll be rewarded.”

  Balmoral stepped forward, nodding toward the second man. “And who would this be?”

  “The servant, Pedro,” Ange answered. The servant cowered and stepped back as troopers surrounded Miguel. Before Miguel could speak, his arms had been pulled behind his back, and he was dragged away.

  “Silence him,” Balmoral called when he began to shout in Spanish for Ange to help him. There was the sound of hand against flesh, a yelp, and then silence as troopers boarded the yacht and returned with a small strongbox, which they placed before Balmoral. Balmoral opened the lid, and coins glimmered. “Where are the letters accusing Buckingham?”