Ladies in Waiting

by Laura L. Sullivan

  If Catherine dies in childbed, Zabby thought, for the first time not at all troubled, Charles will marry again. He has to—there cannot be a king without a queen, a kingdom without an heir. Will he wed that simpering golden fool? Not if I have anything to say about it. And I will. Alone, in our elaboratory, I will have him to myself, as no other scheming hussy of the court ever does. A baron isn’t much, but it is enough—Frances’s family is no better. And then, once he is mine, he will never even think of her again. Not her, not Barbara . . .

  It was not a wish, a possibility—it was a vision, an oracle, a certainty. Bemused by that intoxicating breath churned from miles below, she saw herself as queen, her hand in Charles’s, ruling together, shining such a light of knowledge and progress across the land as would never be dimmed.

  Her head spinning pleasantly, she tilted to look down the hole once again, smiling at the unseen forces, breathing the earth’s breath. Then she remembered: an offering. What do I have precious enough to give? She had a pretty garnet ring, pins with bits of topaz in her hair, but they were only minerals, and surely the deep beneath had enough gems. She was a bit confused now. Was it a well, or a goddess? A mouth? A scientific curiosity? No matter. There was one thing so precious, even pure science would value it, a worthy sacrifice to achieve her ends. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the silk scarf of the tempest-tossed sailors. She kissed it fervently, feeling Charles’s lips in the weave, and loosed it to spiral like an ash tree seed until it was swallowed.

  She lay in her waking dream a while longer, the silk kiss lingering on her lips, until merry voices called her, teasing, and even Catherine jested that she must save some of the well’s wishes for her poor queen. Zabby sat dizzily, then rose, the trees marching in a widdershins dance before settling into their rooted places. She had a sudden fierce headache, and felt ill.

  What have I done?

  A bare moment later, she could hardly recall. She felt for her scarf. It was gone. So that much was true. Tears came then; the scarf had been her nightly bedmate, the confidante of whispered secrets.

  The memory of her wish returned to her in bits and pieces. No! I don’t really want that! I take it back! If she could retrieve her offering . . . She returned to the chasm’s lip, then pulled away. She couldn’t risk breathing that vapor again.

  I swore I’d never even think of that. I cannot go near the shrine again. One breath, and I lost control.

  She felt, acutely, how near to the surface her desires were. She thought she’d fought them so valiantly, beaten them until they cowered, but they were craftier and subtler than she’d ever imagined. She was afraid of herself, of what she would do, could do.

  Zabby took great gulps of pure air, backing away, but she could not get that final image out of her head: standing at Charles’s side, his queen.

  She turned, and found the only obstacle to her success standing before her with her brow furrowed. “Are you unwell?” Catherine asked.

  “Oh, Your Majesty!” Zabby cried, and fell at her feet.

  “What is it, child? Did you make a foolish wish? Don’t fret—this is all a jest. I’m sorry we came here. What was your wish, then?”

  “I . . . I wished something about you.”

  “How kind!” Catherine said, and Zabby dug her nails into her palms. “Did you wish I would bear a son?”

  Zabby gathered herself together. She’s right—it is a jest, a superstition. I breathed noxious fumes and hallucinated, and now I feel unwell. I haven’t cursed this noble woman. I haven’t lusted after a married man, my sovereign.

  I haven’t hoped with all my heart that poor Catherine is indeed with child, so that she may die trying to bring it into the world.

  She sniffed and hastily wiped her eyes. “I do wish you would bear a son,” she said, equivocating. “I wish all of the best things in life for you.” With a superstition she never knew she had, she cast her thoughts back to the chasm, hoping this new, controlled, conscious wish might undo the one she had made in her moment of drugged weakness.

  “Then I suppose I’d better add my own feeble wish to it,” Catherine said, and started for the shrine.

  “Your Majesty, don’t!” Zabby said.

  Catherine looked back.

  “There is something there, coming from the hole. It made me dizzy. It made me think things I shouldn’t.”

  Catherine, misunderstanding, seeing her flush, sighed and said, “You’ll find when you are married, such lusty thoughts are quite natural. Now ready the ponies; I’ll only be a moment.”

  Watching her disappear into the little wood, Zabby knew exactly what Catherine would wish for. She wouldn’t have a thought for herself. Not Let me come safely through delivery. Not Let me live to bear him many children and watch them grow to take his place. Simple, good woman that she was, she would think only of one thing. Let me bear him a living son. That done, she would have no care for her own life. Her duty in this world would be accomplished.

  This business of wishing and praying and offering is falderal, Zabby thought. Still, she fervently hoped Catherine would, through cleverness or chance, frame her own wish in such a way as to undo Zabby’s.

  It must have been the aftereffects of the chthonic gas: Zabby was suddenly sure that someone, some thing, had indeed heard the shameful wish of her inmost heart and, maliciously, granted her the power to make it come true.

  A moment later the queen came out, coyly smiling, and Zabby knew, unequivocally, that if she wanted to, she could be in her place.

  “I have made my wish, for what good it will do,” the queen began, but before she could say more, they heard a low, rhythmic rumble of rushing hooves. One of the ponies did her best to rear in alarm, but she was so stout she only managed a hop and then tried to dance sideways.

  “Riders?” Catherine asked, unconcerned but hoping vaguely that Charles had been worried about her, discovered her whereabouts, and come in search.

  Beth broke from her friends and rushed down the path, lifting her skirt to show layer upon layer of petticoats, colored and plain, as she ran.

  The horsemen thundered into sight. At their head was a laughing young man with a wide, handsome mouth, flashing white teeth—and a black silk mask over his face and hair. Two others flanked him, leading fresh horses.

  “Harry!” Beth cried, and reached up to him as his horse came to a dusty halt. But he swung down, pausing only long enough to say, “Where is the queen?” before striding past her. He spied Catherine before Beth could answer.

  “Into the saddle, m’lady,” one of the other men said.

  “But wait. I must be with him.”

  “We leave within the minute,” the man replied gruffly. “Mount or stay behind.” He held his cupped hands for Beth to use as a step and settled her awkwardly astride.

  “Why so soon?” she asked, baffled. “I must say goodbye to my friends.”

  The man held the reins and said nothing. He watched Harry and the other man approach the ladies.

  “Your Majesty,” Harry said, bowing with elaborate Frenchified elegance, his leg forward, flourishing his hat. “I must ask that you accompany me.”

  From the saddle, Beth strained forward to hear with what magnificent words her beloved would beg the queen for her hand in marriage.

  Zabby knew him before she recognized the others. “Elphinstone!” she cried, and willed herself to step between the highwayman and her queen. Logic intervened, saying, What can you possibly do against large, armed men? From the direction of the shrine, leaves rustled in a laughing sound. This is it, the residue of intoxicating fumes said in her brain. Your chance to be queen.

  She did nothing as Elphinstone’s henchman lifted the queen bodily and carried her, shrieking, to the horses.

  “Did she say no?” Beth asked stupidly as Harry swung into the saddle behind her.

  “Tie her! No, don’t strike her, but gag her if you must. Oliver, take her on your horse. Hurry!”

  “For the love of God, I am wi
th chi . . .” Catherine began to say, but a roll of linen was shoved in her mouth and she was hauled belly-down across the front of the saddle.

  “Harry! What are you doing? Harry!” Beth screamed at him, twisting in the saddle. She knew, suddenly, surely, what was happening, but she sought for some other explanation, however implausible. The queen had forbidden their marriage, and this was some impulsive scheme to convince her. Harry’s henchmen had turned against him with a treasonous plot of their own, and any moment now Harry’s sword would fly to his hand and he’d chop off all their heads, rescue the queen, become England’s darling, win full clemency, be granted an earldom . . .

  “Hold tightly, my love,” Harry said, and spurred his horse forward. Beth struggled to dismount, catching at the reins and trying to disentangle her legs, but Harry held her pressed firmly to him with one arm. The horse, confused by spurs telling him to run and the reins ordering him to halt, reared and danced, and the other highwaymen hesitated, unwilling to fly without their leader.

  And still Zabby did not act, wishing she at least had a dagger to plunge into her own unworthy breast.

  Eliza, however, had nothing holding her back. With a deep, houndlike bay she flung herself onto the ruffian who had the queen pinned across his lap, dragging at Her Majesty’s indigo skirts with one hand and stabbing him in the back of the calf with her cloak pin. He kicked her and she fell back, breathless, but was up again, gasping curses, in an instant. The other rider, heavyset, with black teeth, got between them and shouted, “Let’s go!” He forced his horse to shoulder into the other, the queen’s legs between, to push him down the path. Eliza lunged at him, too, trying once again to reach her queen, but he dropped the lead of the riderless horse he was guiding across his saddle and caught her hand.

  “None of that now, miss,” he said.

  Miss being a term for little girls and whores, Eliza took even greater offense, and this time wisely kicked the horse, who bolted away with his rider but without the spare mount. He caught up with the others, but his horse was already limping.

  “Zabby!” Eliza cried.

  Zabby watched the Queen of England bouncing away to her doom, trussed like a capon, and all she could see was a vast empty space, the vacuum chamber of Charles’s elaboratory, waiting for her to fill the void.

  “Zabby!” Eliza cried again. “I can’t ride well enough to follow them.”

  Zabby didn’t seem to hear her. She had a vision of Charles looking down at her, amused, in the elaboratory . . . no, in his private apartments . . .

  “You are a good rider—you can go after them. Zabby! Do you hear me?” She snapped her fingers in front of her friend’s face. “They have a lamed horse, and not enough fresh mounts. Maybe you can catch them. Zabby!”

  She couldn’t move—she was in a trance, one she knew she had the power to break, but she would not. She knew that what she desired, what she had against her will wished into the pit of Sulis, made her as despicable as any of the scheming half-whores of the court. Like them she was willing to do anything to get the man she desired, to rise in prestige and power. She hated herself, but she could not help rejoicing as she watched the queen’s abduction. Sulis had accepted her offering and granted her boon. It was out of her hands now. She was worse than Lady Castlemaine.

  With that name, it came back to her in a rush: the midnight rendezvous, the last task Harry had to perform, the wicked, scheming Buckingham. The visit immediately afterward to the palace suite of his cousin, Lady Castlemaine. Barbara, the king’s chief mistress. Mother of his sons. The woman whom many people thought of as the de facto queen.

  Zabby might allow a pagan goddess to guide her into evil, but never the despised Castlemaine!

  The trance-image changed, and now it was Castlemaine standing at Charles’s side, laughing at the world, a crown on her head.

  Still not quite knowing what was real, Zabby got her foot in the stirrup and called to Eliza as she mounted, “Ride for Bath and tell the king!” A heartbeat later she was low over the horse’s neck, urging him after the highwaymen.

  Alone, Eliza looked at the fat, lazy ponies, thought of what the king would do to the bearer of bad news, and said in tragicomic tones to the unseen audience that followed her everywhere, “I’d rather be fighting the brigands.”

  Zabby could just see them in the distance; it was open countryside and they kept to the road, riding into the molten setting sun. She didn’t know what she would do when she caught them; then, as her horse slackened his pace and settled into a canter, she realized that catching them shouldn’t be her goal. She should follow them until they stopped—they would have to stop sometime—and then mark the place and find help. The roadway was empty now, but well traveled, and she was bound to come across a farmer or merchant who could at least carry a message, at best set upon the highwaymen with hoes and staves.

  Her schemes became moot when the landscape rose and roughened and they entered a parkland. She lost sight of her quarry. Then she came to a crossroads. One roadway was broad and well maintained, the other narrow and rutted, but both bore the marks of recent hoofprints, and she had no idea which to follow. Perhaps they’d even split up. She listened, but if hoofbeats sounded, they were lost in the settling night noises.

  She chose the road that continued westward and rode into the red-tinged darkness. I can’t go back to Charles—I can never face him again, unless I bring the queen back. If he ever knew . . .

  She slowed her horse to a walk. There was no point in hurrying in what might be the wrong direction. I’ll keep going west, she thought, and if I don’t find the queen, at least I’ll find the coast, and board a ship bound for Barbados. I cannot stay here.

  She rode for an hour or more until the night was so deep that she could no longer see the path. The horse would amble on for a time, then stop, hanging his head and dreaming of water and a warm stable, until Zabby dug in her heels and urged him on. Her head was completely clear now, she was sure of that, and she was mortified at the thoughts brought on by the shrine’s fumes.

  Her mind wandered to her father’s home. That was where she belonged, managing his household, working by his side. She’d come to England to advance her store of knowledge and understanding, to expand her apprehension of the universe. Aye, she understood the world now. It was a base thing, as poisonous as Sulis’s vapors. It had corrupted even her. Best to get away.

  She wished she could be with Charles one last time, though, see that swarthy, handsome face, be the victim of his gentle teasing, brush against him once more when they bent over a lens.

  She felt nothing but contempt for herself . . . but still, in the back of her mind, impish thoughts played devilish tricks. If the queen is gone, perhaps Charles will come after you. Perhaps he will send his fleet to Barbados to fetch his new queen home.

  The more she tried to fight the thoughts, the more insidious they became. They’re only thoughts, she told herself. Let them be—thoughts are not dangerous in themselves. But she remembered what Charles had once told her. Cromwell and a few others had an idea, and it spread like a disease until it chopped off a king’s head. Ideas lead to action.

  Sometime later she saw a dim light ahead, the first sign of companionship on the road.

  Her horse nickered, still hoping for a stable, and Zabby hailed the two people approaching on foot.

  A weary voice cried out, “Whoever you are, as you love your life and queen, help us!”

  It was Beth, slow and footsore, supporting her dying queen.

  Chapter 21

  The Next Queen

  THEY DID NOT ADMIT she was dying, though—not all at once. The doctors at Bath, fearing a misdiagnosis might mean the gallows (as it might have, not many kings before) gave the queen a sedative and pronounced her safe enough to travel. If only they could get her home to her own physicians, she would be someone else’s responsibility. To save her might bring great glory, but to fail would mean, at best, being demoted to horse-leech in some backwater villag
e.

  Two days later she was back in Whitehall and the deathwatch had officially begun. Courtiers bore the most confusing countenances, endeavoring to look solemn but all the while madly speculating who would be the next queen.

  Beth had collapsed as soon as they had returned to Bath, and at Eliza’s whispered suggestion remained in a swoon much longer than strictly necessary. Even Charles wouldn’t interrogate an unconscious girl. Nor could Eliza provide him with much information. Accustomed to writing plots twice as convoluted, she easily guessed that lover and highwayman were one, and that Elphinstone tried to neatly kill two birds with one elf-shot. Exactly why he wished to kidnap the queen, and to what end, she was not sure, though she had a score of ideas.

  But Eliza had no desire to betray Beth to the hangman, and stayed as mum as Charles’s insistent wrath would allow. She told what she had seen—a group of masked men snatched up Beth and the queen—without adding what she assumed.

  “Was it that damned Elphinstone?” Charles roared, to which Eliza quite calmly replied that he’d been masked, and one masked man looks much like another.

  Alone together that first night, the three Elizabeths locked hands.

  “We swore to stand by each other,” Eliza said staunchly. “You don’t have to tell us a thing, Beth-heart, and I vow I’ll tell the king any tale you like. I know whatever happened wasn’t of your doing.”

  “Oh, but it was! It was all my fault. He told me . . . he promised . . . and then . . .”

  “Easy, sweeting. Many’s the man deceived a maid. He loved you, is it, but he was really just after one thing? A common enough story, though he sought not a quim but a queen. He rooked the pawn to take the queen.”

  “No, he loved me—I know it!” Beth protested.

  “Stick to that,” Eliza said. “The king will forgive a pretty fool. A conspirator will swing. Whatever you knew, just keep those big eyes wet and say how you thought he loved you.”