The Herald of Day

by Nancy Northcott

  As Mistress Willoughby murmured, “How awful,” the soldier stepped closer.

  “Fights in the city, too,” he said softly, “so we’re letting folk through a score at once from either end. The king’s orders.” With a sideways glance, he added, “If you want to go ahead, milord, you bein’ His Majesty’s friend, I can slip you in.”

  Mistress Willoughby said nothing, but her body tensed. At the thought of trading on social privilege?

  Surveyeing the crowd, Richard thought others would have a more violent response.

  “Hey, no shovin’,” a man’s deep voice rumbled.

  “Outta my way,” someone else yelled.

  Curses filled the air. The crowd lurched back and forth. They might’ve been dodging a fight or seeking one. In the press, discerning which was impossible. The soldiers rushed forward, halberds ready, to impose order.

  Richard leaned down to Mathers. “My thanks, Sergeant, but I’ll wait my turn.”

  “Thankee, milord.” Mathers touched his helmet brim. Flinging a dark look at the crowd, he marched back to his station.

  “My lord,” Mistress Willoughby murmured. “Could the strange wind be why folk’re on edge?”

  “I don’t know, but they seem too aggravated for a mere delay to cause.”

  “Make way,” Mathers bellowed. “Folk comin’ out. Make room, and then some o’you can go. Count off a score. You lot, form a queue! No shoving!”

  Richard frowned. Adding people in such ugly moods to London’s dense traffic could well lead to a riot.

  “It’s too bad there’s no other bridge,” Mistress Willoughby said softly.

  “Yes, but we’ll brave the chaos. Anything else would take longer.” Riding down to Lambeth to take the horse ferry across with Zeus or, instead, stabling him at one of the inns nearby, taking a boat across, and then finding a hackney to reach home, all so he could send a stable boy back for the stallion, would be far more trouble than waiting their turn here.

  In a dry voice, she said, “I’d forgotten some of London’s inconveniences. The crowds were bad enough before this odd weather struck.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” Too much felt wrong of late. The Conclave should already be at work on at least some of it, preferably without endless dithering.

  At last, Lord Hawkstowe rode through the cramped, dirty confines of London Bridge and crossed Thames Street. Miranda drew her worn cloak tighter against the cold wind blowing off the river.

  Pushed back against him by the horse’s motion, she couldn’t help noticing the solid strength in his chest. And the way his deep voice rumbled against her back when he spoke. With his arms around her, she felt safe. Even wanted to curl closer, but that made no sense. She barely knew him. He’d been kind when they stopped for the night and was patient in his lessons, but what did that truly tell her about him?

  More important was whether he would keep his promises.

  Overhead as they rode up Bishopsgate, where he’d said his house was, a pall of brown wood smoke blended with the lowering clouds. Rank smells rose from the open sewage in the gutters. Coaches, carts, and horsemen crammed the narrow streets. Peddlers and liveried servants added to the congestion. She’d forgotten how chaotic the city was.

  Tension crackled in the air, like the calm before a storm. Most folk dealt with London’s usual crowding as a necessary ill, the jostling and squeezing unavoidable. Now they seemed as likely to shove and punch. At least she and the earl hadn’t seen anything more worrisome than that.

  Without her disguising glamours, she still felt exposed. Vulnerable. But no one looked twice at her.

  Miranda stretched her neck. At least the ache in her shoulders would remind her to keep them straight when she met the Dowager Countess of Hawkstowe. Knowing how to serve people’s food was a far cry from knowing how to talk to a woman who had never churned butter nor carried water for someone else’s bath. Miranda had to manage, though, as Hawkstowe had warned she’d be spending time with both him and his grandmother.

  He turned the horse off Bishopsgate Street and into a stone archway blocked by an iron-banded, wooden double gate. Mullioned windows sparkled on the front of the two stories above, but the gray stone wall had no windows at street level. Beside the gate hung a bell. He leaned over to tap it.

  Someone opened a small hatch in one gate and peered out. “A moment, milord,” a man’s voice said.

  The hatch shut, and the gate swung back to reveal a passage through the wall. Beyond lay a wide courtyard and walls of gray stone. The gatekeeper, a tall, sturdy man with grizzled brown hair and beard, held the gate as they passed through.

  “Welcome home, milord.” The man tugged his forelock as he spoke. Then he pushed the thick panel shut and swung the bar into place.

  “Thank you, Morton,” Hawkstowe said. He introduced the man to Miranda, adding, “His family have the kept the gates at Hawkstowe properties since the reign of Edward IV.”

  Something like two hundred years, then. Miranda smiled as Morton puffed up with pride. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Welcome, mistress.”

  Hawkstowe clucked to the horse. It lurched forward once again, passing onto the packed earth of a courtyard surrounded by stone walls rising to a height of four stories. Tall, narrow windows overlooked the yard. The rooftops bristled with chimneys, each subject to the two-shilling hearth tax.

  If Hawkstowe could afford to pay it, he was wealthy beyond any of her imagining. Miranda swallowed against a rush of dismay. She didn’t know how to behave with such people. Or in such a place.

  In the center of the wall to the left, a grand, stone stairway led to a wide landing. At the top, a wide, eight-paneled door with brass fittings was clearly the main entrance. Other, less grand doors opened into the courtyard on all sides.

  A dark-haired youth in blue wool breeches and jerkin and a white linen shirt ran forward from the gate area. He reached the wide stairway just as Hawkstowe stopped beside it.

  The earl tossed his reins to the young man. “How are you, Robin?”

  “Right as can be, milord.” The lad tugged his forelock. “Welcome home.”

  “Thank you.” Hawkstowe swung his right leg over and dropped to the ground. “Rub him down well. He’s had a long journey.”

  “Aye, milord, you can depend on it.”

  The earl presented the stable boy to her, and the lad tugged his forelock again as he grasped the horse’s reins.

  Hawkstowe held out his arms to Miranda. When she put her hands on his shoulders, he grasped her waist to lift her down.

  Her legs were unsteady, but he caught her before she could fall. “Easy,” he murmured and held her in the curve of his arm.

  Her cheeks heated. The temptation to linger there and the knowledge that it was foolish had her shifting away as soon as she could.

  He didn’t seem to mind. “All right now?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you, but I should bring my bundle,” she said as they mounted the stairs.

  “It’ll be taken to your chamber.”

  Not since her childhood had anyone carried her burdens. It was a small thing, but a daunting vista of other small things, other customs she didn’t know, loomed ahead. She knew how to be a servant, not a guest. Was all this courtesy some sort of ruse? Or was he just odd?

  They reached the doors. A short, stocky, middle-aged man in a simple blue suit opened one of them.

  “Good afternoon, Enderby,” Hawkstowe said.

  He ushered Miranda into an elegant foyer with salmon hangings, oak walls, and a gleaming parquet floor. Someone must spend a great deal of time keeping that wood so clean and shiny. The whole of it made her feel even more out of place.

  The man bowed. “Welcome home, milord. Good day, mistress.”

  Nodding, Hawkstowe thanked him. “This is our guest, Mistress Willoughby. Order her things taken to the yellow bedchamber and have someone ask my grandmother to join us there. I’ll kindle the fire myself.”

  T
he servant said, “At once, milord.”

  Miranda scarcely heard him. She would have a fireplace of her own, a warm room. It sounded too grand to believe.

  Enderby had the same air of familiarity as Lord Hawkstowe. He, too, must be Gifted.

  A man in blue livery, a footman, she guessed, came forward. Hawkstowe surrendered his cloak and hat and assisted Miranda in removing her cloak. Its shabbiness made her want to wince, but the footman didn’t seem to notice as he walked away.

  “My lord,” Enderby said, his expression troubled, “if I might have a moment.”

  An unreadable look passed between the two men. Hawkstowe said, “Of course. Have John escort Mistress Willoughby to her chamber and send Patience up to her.”

  “Of course, milord.” The man beckoned, and the same footman came forward again.

  Miranda followed him and tried not to gawk along the way. This place was so grand, and she was so plain. If she didn’t live up to their expectations, would they cast her out?

  God’s wounds, Richard thought as his guest followed John up the stairs. More problems.

  When the pair were out of earshot, Richard cocked an eyebrow at his porter. “Well, Enderby?”

  His face expressionless, Enderby said, “Master Mainwaring has been in residence for the last sennight.”

  Richard frowned. If George was here, he needed something, likely money. George had no self-discipline, and he’d been trading on his status as heir presumptive to cause problems at Hawkstowe. He seemed unlikely ever to straighten himself out.

  “I’d best see him straight away, then.” Conducting magic lessons with his unGifted cousin in the house, even though George spent much of his time out gambling, whoring, or drinking, would require some care.

  “I believe,” Enderby said coolly, “your lordship’s cousin is still abed.”

  Richard acknowledged the information with a nod and stalked toward the wide, oak stairs. His cousin would soon be very much out of bed.

  Richard strode to the first floor and turned right. The rush matting on the corridor’s parquet flooring muffled his footsteps, but George wouldn’t hear them anyway unless he’d drunk far less than usual.

  The tall windows overlooking the back garden admitted weak afternoon sunlight. The trees in the orchard seemed to droop, as though they hadn’t had enough rain. He’d have to ask Grandmère how long the eerie wind had blown here.

  He reached the room his cousin usually occupied and entered without knocking. Curtains of pale blue damask blocked the courtyard windows on the room’s far side. From behind the matching bed curtains came loud snoring.

  “Damnation,” Richard muttered.

  A flick of his hand magically opened the window curtains, a move he wouldn’t have used if George could’ve seen it. Light poured into the room as he stalked around the bed, to the window side. When he yanked open the bed curtains, their rings rattled and clanked. Light poured over the mound under the covers, which obscured all of George except his tousled, brown hair.

  The snoring stopped. Burrowing into the pillows, George turned his back to the window and jerked the coverlet over his head.

  Richard grasped the coverlet’s edge to yank it free. “Up, George.” Richard flung the coverlet to the foot of the bed.

  George dived sleepily for it.

  Slamming a hand onto the crumpled folds, Richard said, “Get out of the bed before I toss you out.”

  “I say.” George squinted at him. “’Tis early, Richard.”

  “It’s midafternoon. Get up.” Richard gripped the edge of the mattress. The enhanced strength of the Gifted didn’t compare to that of mythical giants, but that and a bit of magic would allow him to pull the feather mattress out from under his cousin.

  “A’right, a’right.” George slipped through the curtains on the bed’s far side. His bare footsteps plodded toward the hearth.

  Richard strode to meet him. “No wine. You’ve had enough.”

  Hand on the fine Venetian glass decanter, George scowled. His face looked pasty in the sunlight, bloated from too much drink and too little sleep. His hair, cut short to make wearing a wig easier, stuck out from his head in spikes. The stain on his nightshirt looked old.

  “I need a drink to wake up,” he said.

  “You need a clear head. Sit down.”

  George glared but had the sense not to bring the decanter as he shuffled toward one of the chairs by the hearth. He seated himself slowly.

  Settling into the opposite chair, Richard caught a whiff of heavy, floral perfume. “If you brought a woman in here—”

  George shook his head, then winced, rubbing his brow. “Grandmère’d kill me before you could. I had a lusty wench, indeed, but at Little Nell’s, down by the docks.” He smiled. “You should try Nell’s girls. You need to have some fun, Richard.”

  “I needn’t bother. You have enough for an army. What have you done now, George?”

  “Done?” George opened his eyes wide.

  “You look about as innocent as one of Nell’s girls. How much do you need?”

  George shrugged, his glance drifting to the cold hearth. “Not so much. Fifty or sixty pounds.”

  “Last month, it was twenty. How did you run up such a debt?” Richard directed a cold look at him.

  “I really think that’s my affair, Richard.” George drew himself up in the chair.

  “My money, my affair. That sum would pay the Hawkstowe steward for two years or all the footmen in this house for a year.”

  God’s wounds, but the tenants of Hawkstowe deserved far better than George’s negligent, self-indulgent care. Yet Richard couldn’t marry or beget heirs unless he lifted the curse.

  George fidgeted, a sulky expression on his face.

  “Well?” Richard prodded.

  George stared down at the rush matting. His gaze drifted to the gold-and-brown Turkey-work carpet draped over the table by the wall.

  “As you wish.” Richard stood. “I trust you’ll find Fleet prison comfortable when your creditors have you arrested for debt. You’ve an hour to leave the house.”

  “You can’t mean that!” George shot to his feet. “’Od’s fish, I’m your heir.”

  Richard stared hard at him. “You have expectations, George, no more. I’ll no longer tolerate your meddling at Hawkstowe—”

  “I didn’t, I merely—”

  “I trust my steward. You manhandled the smith’s daughter. I won’t stand for that, nor will I pay for your drunken follies. We’re done.” Richard wheeled and marched toward the door.

  “Wait,” George cried.

  Richard turned slowly.

  George prodded the rush matting with a bare toe. “I was gambling.”

  “Losing sixty pounds requires a great deal of gambling.”

  George shrugged.

  Inwardly, Richard groaned. A stay in a cell would do George good, but it would distress Grandmère, even though she’d agree he deserved it. “I’ll pay your debts. This time.”

  George looked sidelong at him.

  “I’ll also pay for a room somewhere in the city until the spring, but that’s all. Truly all. Ever.” Perhaps the shock of being ejected would help George decide to straighten up.

  “You won’t need to help me again, Richard.”

  He always said that. But he never meant it, and only a fool would believe this time would be different.

  “Good, because this is your last chance.” Richard waited until his cousin met his gaze. “You’re going out to Jamaica to work with my steward there, whose commands you will obey.”

  “Jamaica,” George yelped. “I can’t go to Jamaica!”

  “You can’t stay here, either, without making a mess for yourself.”

  Jamaica was far enough away that George would land in debtor’s prison before he could appeal to Richard, but Grandmère wouldn’t have to know it. Or have people comment upon it. If George turned himself around and did well, they could discuss a larger role for him in managing the fam
ily properties. But saying so now would only bring forth promises Richard dared not trust.

  “You’ll sail with the supply ship in the spring. If you run into debt again before then, I’ll hand you over to a press gang and let the Royal Navy pound the nonsense out of you.”

  “You—you—that’s kidnapping,” George sputtered.

  “No, it’s impressment. Meanwhile, I’ll disinherit you.”

  Crossing his arms, George smirked. “That, you can’t do.”

  Richard raised an eyebrow. “Only the title and Hawkstowe itself, where you’re none too beloved just now, are entailed. The rest of the estate is mine to do with as I will.”

  George’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve no other kin to leave it to.”

  “I can find someone,” Richard ground out. “Or else tie it up in trusts you’ll never break. I warn you, George, don’t try me.”

  They glared at each other. George’s face slowly reddened.

  Light footsteps sounded in the corridor. Behind Richard, Grandmère’s low, firm voice said, “Well. Another bout of familial affection, I see.”

  Richard turned to greet her. “Good day, Grandmère.”

  “Welcome home, Richard.” She kissed his cheek. Her glance raked upward from George’s bare feet to his irate face.

  “For goodness’ sake, George, put on some clothes. Richard, Cabot Winfield asked that you join him and his brother for supper as soon as you returned.” Despite her casual tone, her green eyes held a knowing look.

  Of course Cabot would be aware that he’d returned. By scrying in a fire, he could monitor any parts of the journey conducted outside warded buildings or chambers.

  “And I want to hear about Dover,” Grandmère said.

  For George’s benefit, Richard smiled. He slid her arm through his. “Dover was interesting.”

  With a glance back at George, he said, “I meant what I said.” In answer to Grandmère’s questioning look. Richard added, in a flat tone that closed the subject, “George will be leaving us.”

  As they walked down the corridor, he told her about their guest and her visions. Grandmère listened in thoughtful silence.

  She must’ve stayed in today, for she wore a simple gown of rich green wool that bore no elaborate decoration, only frills of lace bordering the square neckline and elbow-length sleeves. The fringe of silvery hair over her brow and the clusters of curls at the sides of her head framed a face that looked younger than her sixty-three years.