by Smith, Skye
"I was in the bed but the bloody thing is too short. None of these Stuart men must be even as tall as you. This corner is out of the draught so I pulled the bedding over here."
"Oh you silly. I give you the room of a prince and you still sleep on the floor like a deck hand." As she said this she walked carefully towards him. The carpet in front of the bedding was an obstacle course of weapons all laid out to be found easily in the dark. He lifted his down comforter and she crawled under it with him, fully clothed. "I just stopped a young maid from visiting your bed. I hope you don't mind."
"No I don't ... Ahhh," he hissed and squirmed, "you are like ice. Why don't you wrap yourself in a cloak if you are cold?"
"A comely lass puts up with a lot of chills to make a good impression. Ummm, you are so warm. Here let me put my hands between your thighs to warm them up."
"That's supposed to be my line," he laughed softly. "Oooh. I don't mind if you stopped another lass, so long as you stay."
"You know I can't. Robert is sleeping now, but eventually he will wake up cold and reach for me. I only came to tell you..."
"Thank you," he interrupted. "No need. I owed it to your mother to make sure that you reached Windsor safely."
She cursed him under her breath for mentioning his wife while they were so cozy together in each others arms. "I came to tell you that you must leave this place, tomorrow. Go back to London, or go home, but stay far away from the Riches and the Hampdens and the rest of the Providence Company directors. They will get you killed."
"But tomorrow I was going to ask Robert Rich to put his promise in writing that I can claim the governorship of Bermuda on my arrival there, because I can have it witnessed by John Hampden."
"Fool, they will eagerly renew their promise, yet will sign nothing. You are so thick. Even village girls like me know that fine gentlemen may promise you many things to have their way with you, and will keep promising them so long as you please them, but in the end they break those promises and move on to the next village girl."
"But you were given a London townhouse," he interrupted.
"I was given the use of a townhouse, rent free, yes, but only the promise of the title. It will be the same with you and the governorship."
"So if you are so smart why do you continue on with Rich, my pretty village girl?"
"Because I live very well and risk very little. All I need do is put up with an old man pawing me and showing me off, whereas you risk your very life over and over again. You've saved the freedom, nay, the lives of all of the directors of the Providence Company at least once. You've run blockades in your ships. Two days ago you were towing powder barges. Is there any task you can name that is more stupidly dangerous than towing a powder barge. They will continue to promise you the governorship, and you will continue to ride off and risk your life hoping that when you return, if your return, the charter will be signed and waiting for you. Grow up, you fool. They are using you."
"As I am using them," he argued weakly.
"In times of war the strong prey on the weak, but in times of peace the rich prey on the poor," she quoted.
"Since when have you been studying history, or is that philosophy?" he asked solemnly, while he thought about how dangling promises in front of him was like him dangling carrots in front of a donkey.
"Countess Susanna is a student of history. When she spouts about what she has recently pieced together, she spouts it to me. I listen patiently, and remember some of it. But that is beside the point. Our own village Seer talks about it in terms of the warm times and the cold times. The warm times of peace are behind us, and ahead of us lie the cold times of war. The men who became rich in the warm times..."
"Like Robert Rich and his forefathers?"
"Yes, now they must use their wealth to become strong. You were poor in the warm times, and now you are weak."
"If I am so weak why do they depend so much on me?" He said through a yawn as he pulled her closer to him.
"You are weak because you are willingly bought. First with the profits from the gun running, and now with the promise of the governorship. You must leave this place. Can't you see that they need pistoleer skirmishers like you more than ever. They need to send scouting parties out on dangerous mission to find out what Charlie and Rupert are doing, and to harry them with ambushes and surprise attacks. They need you, but you don't need them. They will send you out on dangerous missions again and again if you let them, until one day I will be forced to wear black for a year."
"Mmm"
"Are you listening to me?" she asked. He had slipped lower under the covers so that he could press his eyes into her breasts. His body had gone limp and his breathing was soft and steady. "Don't you understand?" He didn't stir. "I love you Daniel Vanderus and I don't want to lose you," she whispered, and then she kissed him and eased herself out of his softened grasp and out of his bed. The cold of the air in the room was a shock. She grabbed up a spare linen sheet off a hassock and swung it around her shoulders and silk gown like a cloak and went back to her own room, the queen's chamber.
Ella was sleeping soundly behind the curtains of the queen's bed, so she tiptoed passed the great old canopied bed to reach the connecting door to the king's chambers. Once in that room she shrugged off all that she was wearing and snuggled under the covers next to Robert. Robert was old, yes, but when he slept he barely moved so she could sleep soundly at his side.
Hours later she woke to something poking at her thighs. Robert may have been old, but most mornings his last dream of his sleep gave him a morning wood. She gently pushed it away from her and moved further away in the bed, but she couldn't find sleep again for her mind was already stirring and fretting about her many new duties. The pre-dawn light had begun, so she decided to rise, relieve herself, make sure her new kitchen staff were stirring. Once that was done she would come back to bed to do the wifely duty of milking Robert's morning wood to save the maids from being pestered by him when they came in to make the bed.
The chill of the room after the warmth of Rob's bed made her shiver so she picked up her linen sheet again and wrapped it around her. Her first stop must be the queen's chambers where she had lain out some clothes more suitable to running a household and staying warm than the few ounces of silk she had worn at last night's dinner table. The lass Ella was still asleep in the queen's bed so she shook her. She did not stir. Shook her again. Her hand came back sticky. Warm and sticky. She sniffed her hand. Blood. Two fingers behind Ella's ear told her that the poor thing's heart had stopped beating. The blood was from a wound above her heart. Murder then.
Britta clutched the sheet tighter to her and quietly backed away from the girl, away from the bed, towards the door to the hallway. As silently as she could she unlocked the door, and then she stood to one side. Was the murderer still in the room? She no longer wanted to be alone in this room, so she screamed and then SCREAMED again. Not more than seconds later, heavy bodies hit the door. The fools hadn't even tried the door handle. "It's not locked," she called out, "use the handle." Two bodies, two men's bodies, tumbled through it.
Before she could explain anything two more bodies tumbled through the connecting door to the king's chamber, Robert's chamber. Two of his lifeguards ... one of whom carried a candle lantern. The others of Robert's personal guard would be have surrounded his bed to protect. Their foremost duty was to protect their earl, not to investigate the screams of women.
"There is a dead maid in the queen's bed," Britta told the men. "She has been stabbed. The murderer must still be in this room, somewhere." There was a flint spark near the hall door as a candle was lit, and then another. As their flames glowed to life she saw that Daniel was holding one candle above his head, partially so that he could see into the dark corners, but mostly so the earl's lifeguard could see and recognize both he and John Hampden.
It was with a feeling of complete relief that Britta recognized Daniel and she moved closer to him and stood behind him and sucked back some so
bs before saying, "I came in from Robert's room and found her body. She slept in that bed all night, and her body is still warm." There was a pause while she sobbed again. "The hall door was still locked so I unlocked it and screamed. There is no other way out of this room but the two doors, so the killer must still be in here." Her eyes were darting everywhere. "Behind the furniture, or in one of the wardrobes, or perhaps under the bed."
More candles were lit and a quick search was made by the four men, each holding a candle in one hand and a pistol in the other. Britta now also had a pistol. It was Daniel's wheel-lock pocket pistol that he had put down so he could light a candle. It was cold and heavy in her hand. How could something so small be so heavy. How could something so beautifully crafted be for a use so ugly. She let it hang like a lead weight on the end of her right arm with the dangerous end pointing at the floor.
"There is no one in this room but us," one of the guards said. "Ma'am, you were the only here in a locked room with the murdered girl. I'm afraid we will have to hold you for questioning."
"Don't act the fool," Hampden told the man dismissively. "These old palaces have hidden passages and spy holes. The killer has used one of them. All of you keep quiet and listen, while I think." A moment later he said, "For a half dozen reigns this has been the queen's room, yet there is only one connecting door, the one to the king's chamber. Henrietta had what, eight babies by Charlie? Surely she would demand a connecting door to the nursery. All of you, look for a hidden door."
"The nursery room is behind that wall," Britta pointed, and the two lifeguards began tapping on that wall and listening for any hollow sounds. There was a sound from the wall, as if someone had fallen against it from the other side.
"Bugger this," Hampden said and ran into the hallway to go around to the nursery in hopes of cutting off the killer's escape. Daniel was on his heels. A half a moment later the two lifeguards followed them at the run, leaving Britta once again alone in the room with the dead girl, and dressed in nothing but a linen sheet. At least they had left her a lit candle. She heard something click and she turned to stare into the shadows towards the sound. A man leaped towards her from what should have been a bookcase.
"No, it can't be," a man's shaky voice muttered as he skidded to a stop just short of her. "I killed you. Are you a ghost?" He was reaching forward with a bloody dagger towards the apparition in white. There was a grind, a flash, a bang and a lot of smoke, and then a crash as the stranger fell across a small table and crushed it into the floor.
"Don't shoot, it's John," a voice came from the bookcase-door, and Hampden ran into the room and pointed his own pocket pistol at the writhing man on the floor. When he glanced up at Britta, the vision of her took his breath away. She was a goddess from some ancient legend with her comely face and her bedroom hair cascading over her shoulders. While her left side was draped in a linen sheet, the sheet had fallen away from her right side as she had raised her pistol. Her leg was long, her skin was golden, her breast was full and high, and her still gun was held straight up above her head in her right hand to keep its smoke out of her eyes.
"Get out of my way," the unmistakable voice of the earl came from the connecting doorway as he pushed and scrambled through it despite the hands of his own guards pulling him back. "Oh my wondrous girl," he told Britta as he hurried across the room to hold her and pull her sheet back up to cover her one bared breast. "I will commission an Italian to sculpt you in that pose. What hey John. Was that not a pose you will remember all your life? What would you call such a statue?"
Hampden was still staring at her unblinking. "Liberty," he said softly.
"What of her victim?" Robert asked. "The scoundrel still lives, and is obviously in pain." He looked towards the two guards who had tried to hold him away from the danger and told them, "Take him away for questioning. I want him to tell us what he was doing, who ordered him to do it, and who his accomplices were. Then hang him."
"Hold," Hampden ordered, pointing to the guards. "Robert, stop acting like the king. You are sleeping in his bed, not replacing him. Our arguements with him have always been about his thinking that he is above the rule of law, and now you are ready to flaunt it as badly as ever he did. This man will be tried and sentenced by a jury of twelve of his peers. In his case that means twelve from this, the king's household."
"There ... there aren't twelve men left," Britta spoke out with a shaky voice. "Most of them went in the carriages to Oatlands."
"Then a mix of men and women will do," Hampden told her gently, and for a moment he lost himself in her eyes.
"Women ... on a jury?" Robert asked and then snickered.
"Why not?" Britta scolded. "His victim was a woman." She looked over at Daniel who was now kneeling beside the man she had shot. "Will his wound kill him?. Turn him over so I can see who he is."
Daniel cradled the man's head and then very gently and carefully rolled him over. The man groaned in agony. "A gut wound," Daniel told her, "so he'll probably die of lockjaw fever within the week." He very gently adjusted the mans arms to keep him on his side so the blood in his mouth could drain without choking him.
The pain of the movement brought the man back to his senses and he stared up at Britta through half seeing eyes. "But you were dead. I killed you," he gasped.
"You killed Ella, one the queen's seamstresses." Britta told him, and then to the others, "I know this man. He keeps the wine cellar, which means he has a master key. The medicines, such as the monk's hood, would be stored in the cool of his cellar."
"Serves Ella right," the man moaned. "It was sacrilege for her to be sleeping in her majesties bed."
"But it was me you were trying to kill?" Britta asked. "Why? I am a nobody. Why me?"
"Rup ... Prince Rupert ... cough ... ordered it. I don't know why."
"Because you refused him," Hampden told her. "You refused him, and shamed him, and carved up his best friend, Manfred. To a German prince any of these would be a sin against him which would demand vengeance."
"And John should know," Daniel interrupted, "since Rupert is seeking vengeance against him as well, and for similar reasons."
"You are shaking, dear," Robert told her. "Come, I will take you away from this gore, and put you to bed in my room."
She spun out of the earls arms so that she could grab up her clothes. To do so she either had to put the pistol down, or lose her grip that was keeping the sheet closed and decent. She laid the pistol down on the bench where her clothes were laid out, and then she looked from her clothes, to the pistol, and back again. "The sun is almost up," she told the men, "I have things I must do ... my dooties." She shrugged and let her sheet fall open for a moment while she gathered up her clothes and the pistol and then danced towards the king's chamber to get dressed. "Danny, I am borrowing your pocket pistol. Is there a kit that goes with it?"
Daniel nodded to her, and then she was gone from the room. Without her beauty to stare at, the men stared at each other, and then were embarrassed by this and tried not to stare at each other. Daniel kicked at the bloody dagger on the floor and told them, "If she had been holding any kind of pistol other than a friction wheel-lock, she would be dead by now. It doesn't need cocking. All she had to do was point the thing and keep pulling on the trigger until the wheel sparked the flash powder.
"I have one just like it," Robert told him. "I'll give it to her in place of yours."
"Best give yours to me," Daniel replied. "She'll not be letting my little pistol go, not now, not ever. It didn't let her down. When all of us big strong men had let her down by leaving her undefended while we ran around to the nursery, it didn't let her down."
"If you do commission a sculpture," Hampden said, "commission it in white marble and larger than life, and have it stood at the entrance to the House of Lords at Westminster. Liberty is after all, a young woman, and the lords ignore that fact to their peril."
* * * * *
In the early afternoon Daniel searched for Britta and found h
er standing alone on the eastern wall looking out over the river and the flats of farm fields far below. So that she would know it was a friend coming up behind her, he softly hummed a tune that all their clan learned when they were children . She was not wearing a cloak despite the brisk breeze along the wall, so he pressed in behind her and wrapped his arms and his own cloak around her. There was a heavy lump in her apron pocket ... his pistol. She relaxed back wards against him, seeking his warmth. Her cheeks were damp from tears.
"What are you staring at?" he asked softly into her ear.
"All the towers. Every village has a church tower and every city a cathedral tower so I have been counting them. From here you can see them all the way to London, and all around it. There are so many of them, and for each one so many people, and all of their houses and animals. Such wealth, such bounty, and yet I was born in a mud hut on a fens island. What am I doing here? How dare I sleep in a queen's room?"
"You're just feeling low," he told her softly. "Killing your first man will do that. Look how it changed your sister Teesa. It will be the same with you."
"It's not the same at all," she said impatiently. "Whether Teesa admitted it to herself or not, she has always been a healer, deeply touched by the feelings of others. Of course killing a man would shock her into changing her ways. I don't have the 'touch' as she does, or her extra senses. All I have is my beauty."
Daniel disagreed with her, but not aloud. This was not the time. If he mentioned the magic calmness he felt whenever she pressed her breasts into his eyes, she would likely slap his face. "Your beauty has taken you from a mud hut to the bed of a queen.?"
"I've ordered the bed burned. And don't you lecture me too. I don't care if every queen since Eleanor has born princes in it, for it is an evil thing if it causes young girls to be murdered in their sleep." She took a deep breath to calm herself. His warmth was seeping through her clothes and was being welcomed by her skin. "So is the trial finished now?"