“What have you done?” she asked. “I am to have extreme unction now.” Her cap of jewels and saints’ knucklebones was askew. “Where is my priest? If I die unshriven . . .” Her words were heavy and slurred, and she could not focus on Charles, though she reached for his hand.
“But you are not going to die, my love,” he said lightly. “I forbid it.”
She squeezed his hand. “But how are the children, my darling?”
Charles exchanged a look of alarm with Zabby. “The . . . children?”
Catherine sighed and smiled. “Our little girl is so like you. She will be a beauty. But I am sorry about the boy. He is such an ugly baby.”
Zabby nodded, and Charles, looking frightened, said after some hesitation, “I was a very homely child, they say, all red and black.”
“Oh, if he grows to look like you I will be pleased.” Her eyes closed, and for a time she seemed to sleep. She was in any event more peaceful than before, her head resting easily on the shorn locks of hair still scattered on her pillow, that slight smile of maternal pride hovering on her lips.
“She is raving,” Charles whispered to Zabby across the room. “Her mind is gone. Is this, then, the end?”
“She has a high fever. You should have heard the things you said in your delirium. Give me a moment to examine her.”
Zabby felt the queen’s pulse, put her ear to her chest to listen to her breath, to her stomach to hear her intestinal sounds.
“Charles, I am no physician.”
“You saved me.”
“I helped keep you from dying. That’s completely different. You had an illness I knew of, one that has no cure save to exhaust itself. If the patient endures longer than the disease, he lives; that is all. I do not know what is wrong with the queen. She said . . .” Zabby bit her lip, but again, she could not withhold any confidence from Charles. “She said she was with child, before we went to the shrine. She didn’t want to tell you until she was sure, and then she began to have problems. Bleeding, pain.” To her own surprise, Zabby began to weep quietly. “Did the physician say whether she was still with child?”
“No. I never knew.” His face hardened. “To steal the queen is treason, but to kill my unborn heir!” His fists clenched at his side, as if he, a monarch, would thrash his enemy like a common citizen. He started toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To order an execution. He’s been questioned long enough.”
“Wait!” she cried, and darted in front of him. “Have you found proof? Tell me! Is that why you were playing tennis with him, to keep him off his guard?”
“What?”
“Buckingham—he is to die? Did he do it for himself, or for Barbara?”
Charles took a breath as if to yell, but let it out in a long sigh. “I speak of that blackguard Elphinstone. Buckingham is not involved.”
“But he must be, in some way. I heard him say quite clearly that the job came from him, and . . . Oh!” How could she have forgotten? In all her attempts to unravel the plot against the queen, that was the one morsel she’d neglected, the one unbelievable thing too impossible to even consider—so she hadn’t. Now, glancing at the apparently sleeping queen, she said, “Buckingham told Harry the orders came directly from you.”
She stared at him with her wide-open tawny eyes, full of hope and dread. Her own Charles would never be the sort of man to order his wife’s kidnapping, possibly her murder. Nothing could make her believe it was true. But then, if he had done it so he could marry again . . . If he had done it for her . . .
A woman can forgive almost any crime done in her name.
“Would you believe such a thing of me?” he asked softly.
What could she say but no?
He smiled and touched her hair briefly. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
She noticed only later that he had never denied it, and it lingered like a worm in her mind, burrowing and writhing.
She turned her attention to Catherine, sweeping away her cut locks and bathing her face in mint water to cool her. Charles, distracted from his lethal mission, sat at his wife’s bedside, looking alternately grieved and bored.
At length Catherine stirred again, and her eyes blearily found her two caretakers.
“You are here,” she said to her husband. “I feared it was only a dream. I have so many fantastical dreams of late. There was a snake that came from a cave, and . . . but no matter. You are here after all. They told me you must not come, but I am glad you defied them.” She gave a weak chuckle that disintegrated into a pained cough. “How silly I am. You are king! To think that there is anyone to defy, save God. But I am glad, for now I can go.”
“Go? You mean die? No, nothing of the sort.”
“There is only one thing I will regret in leaving this world,” she said, her plaintive eyes regarding him. “My husband, my love, say it has not been a bad union. Say I have not disappointed you. I know I have caused you trouble, but oh, I have loved you so hard, and I’ve tried . . . tried . . . tried . . .”
Her voice trailed off and her eyes fogged for a moment, so that when she spoke again they could not tell if she was with them or in her own dream world.
“Now that you are with me I find I almost wish to remain. But no, it is too late for that. I know in dying I give you a greater gift than I could in life. They say I lost the child, that I may not be able to bear one even if I lived. They thought I did not hear them. Charles, my king and love, with me gone you can marry again. She will not love you as I love you. No one can . . . I do not think you know . . . But she will give you what I can’t—an heir. A king needs sons. My womb will not provide, but still my body in its death will serve you.”
Charles was weeping openly now. What he could not feel for his wife while she lived at his side he got an inkling of now as she all but sacrificed her life for him.
“Choose not a princess,” she went on. “Why do you need a princess when your love will make her a queen? Marry a friend. Oh, Charles! It hurts me so!” She kneaded at her belly as if to drive the pain away.
“It hurts me so,” Charles echoed.
“Will you hear my sins?”
“I will fetch the priest.”
“No, you are my confessor. Forgive me. Once when I was angered I asked what you would do if I took a lover. Believe me, I never would, never could. We are made differently, men and women.” She chuckled, then curled in pain. “When I came from the convent I scarcely knew that much about marital relations. My little maids of honor knew more than I, and they tried to guide me in the ways of men. But I did not understand until now.”
“Forgive me,” Charles said.
“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m only glad to have had a little of your love, a touch or two, a brief joyous time as your wife.”
“Oh, my Catherine, my darling, you must not die. Please.” His tears fell on her breast. “Please, try to live. For my sake!”
Her eyes lit up. “Do you mean it?” she asked, weak, but with a sudden spark of vitality. “Oh, Charles, have I ever disobeyed you? If you say I must live, then I will!”
Charles, his husbandly duties (about which he was always punctilious) accomplished, wiped his tears, ordered a prompt execution, and sent a message to Lady Castlemaine to prepare for his night’s recreation.
“You’re a good girl, Zabby,” Catherine said when the king had gone, condescendingly but lovingly patting her head.
Which is a far cry from You’d have made a fine queen, the sentiment she knew had been on the queen’s lips not a moment before.
They say the king’s touch has miraculous healing powers. So too, perhaps, his tears. From the moment his salt had landed on Catherine, she began to rally. She was weeks in bed, her mind continued to wander, and she became a little deaf, but by winter she was back in the presence chamber enduring spiteful looks from all who had lost money or power or the possibility of queenship from her refusal to die.
Not until Charles left d
id Zabby realize what he’d revealed—Beth’s lover had been captured and would soon be executed.
The moment the queen was sleeping peacefully, Zabby slipped from her side, sent in one of her servants to attend her (with strict orders from the king not to allow any additional treatment except by his own approval), and went in search of information.
She was bewildered that Charles had kept the secret from her and, unless the court gossips had lost their passion, from the rest of the world, too. She thought he would have celebrated the capture of the man responsible for his queen’s kidnapping, not to mention the scores of robberies he and his band had committed. It would have made Charles look a hero to the people, the avenger of his queen, and the savior of all travelers. She knew how he felt about the populace, a queer admixture of fear and anxiety to please. He hated them; he needed them.
“There you are!” came a brazen voice from down the hall.
Zabby sighed. Lady Castlemaine was the last person she wanted to deal with at the moment.
“Well, how does our dear queen?” Barbara tapped her red-heeled foot impatiently and her eyebrows arched high into her perfect forehead. She affected an air of scornful unconcern, but Zabby knew she must be fretting.
“The king tells her she must live,” Zabby said.
“And that mewling wretch will do whatever her husband orders her,” she said, but sighed with relief. The she lowered her voice. “It appears I am in your debt.”
Zabby waited.
“It has reached me that there was some suspicion of a plot against the queen . . . by some party other than Elphinstone, I mean. You heard mention of treason, saw a certain someone go to my rooms afterward. You could have ruined me, yet you told Charles it could not have been my scheme. Why?” She looked genuinely troubled, and considerably older.
“Because I did not think you would do such a thing.”
“What matter the truth of it? If I had such a chance to rid myself of my rival I’d take it, truth or no. Charles trusts you. If you had told him I was involved . . . well, I might have escaped burning, but I’d be exiled to Scotland at best, which is nearly as bad, and you’d reign supreme of all the harlots. You should have done me in while you had the chance.”
What if she’d done as Barbara would have? With a little malice, oh, just a bit, and only the barest bending of truth, she could have doomed one of the three women who stood between her and Charles. And had she not alerted Charles to his wife’s miserable treatment at the hands of her Portuguese ladies, doctors, and priests, the queen too would have perished, and then the field would be clear of all but Frances.
“You really are a little fool,” Barbara said with something very like affection. “Well, this is the strangest rivalry I’ve ever known.” She gave Zabby a wry smile. “Our Charles, if I may style him such, will be attending me tonight in my apartments. Perhaps you’d care to join us? No? Well, should you change your mind . . . Your face isn’t near as fishy as once I thought.”
She laughed and sailed off, but Zabby called softly after her, “Do you know they’ve captured Elphinstone?” She wasn’t sure if she should mention it, but Charles hadn’t said to keep it a secret, so perhaps it was now common knowledge. In any case, she had to find out, for Beth’s sake.
“No!” She was back quick as a cat, eager for news. “Is he at Newgate? I’m a-dying to view the devilish fellow, though since he never had the sense to rob me, I ought to cut him.”
“I don’t know where he is. No one knows they’ve taken him. It has been kept quiet for some reason. Can you find out where he is, and what will happen? Charles said just now he’s gone to order his execution, but there must be a trial, no?”
“And just why is it so important to you?” Barbara asked archly.
“It isn’t . . . not to me.”
“Ah, to your little mousy friend. She met Elphinstone before, did she not? Fancies herself in love with him? Poor wretch. Well, since you did me a favor, I’ll do one for you and find out all about it. I would have anyway, because Elphinstone’s a fascinating figure of a man. But if I can clear my debt of you with such a pittance!”
Zabby was left having no idea which of Barbara’s words were false, which sincere, what was meant for kindness and what for scorn.
Barbara was true to her word, though, and before nightfall a note came for Zabby while she was in her room with Beth. She read it twice over quickly and then, as the missive instructed, tore it into tiny pieces and tossed it into the fire.
“Beth, dear, I have something to tell you. Harry—your Harry—has been captured.” She rushed to say it before she lost her nerve. “He’s to be executed Friday.”
She expected hysteria.
Beth blinked heavily, blinked again.
“So that’s why he didn’t come for me,” she said. And then, “So soon?”
Zabby told her what Barbara’s note had revealed: that Elphinstone had become such a popular figure, it was feared his execution would cause unrest. Someone might try to rescue him from Newgate Prison or the execution cart, so his arrest was secret, his trial swift, and his death was to be prompt.
Zabby thought her friend must be in shock. Surely tears would come soon; tears or screams or unconsciousness. But Beth said very calmly, “I do not think it would be possible to visit him in Newgate, do you? But surely I can attend his execution. Will you come with me? And Eliza too.” She had the glassy, staring eyes of a madwoman, and she was almost smiling. “We’ll go as boys, like before. I’d like to wear my buttercup lutestring silk, though it doesn’t matter, really, does it?”
Beth suddenly reminded Zabby of St. Catherine on the wheel, smiling through her torture, so full of holy joy that the spiked wheel broke.
“Beth, I don’t think you ought to go. Hold him in your heart, but don’t go to see his suffering. He wouldn’t like you to.”
Beth gave her a quizzical little look.
“But if I don’t see him again, how am I to marry him?”
Chapter 24
The Tyburn Jig
THOUGH SHE FEARED for Beth’s sanity, Zabby agreed to help her, and even pulled Eliza away from the last day’s rehearsal to join them. Beth swore she’d go, with or without her comrades.
“We’d better accompany her,” Eliza said in an aside. “In her state she’s likely to toss herself into the Thames. She’d do best to forget that criminal love of hers and latch on to the earl. She needs a protector to save her from her own foolishness, and I for one won’t be able to do it for long.”
“Why, where will you be going?”
She gave Zabby a sly look. “Didn’t you hear? My father has arranged a most suitable match.” She gave such a screech of laughter that even Beth was dragged out of her faintly smiling somnambulism.
“And you’re going to marry him?”
“Heavens, no!”
“Then what—”
But Beth urged them to hurry, and Zabby wouldn’t get her answer until that night.
Zabby and Eliza both dressed in the formal black coat, weskit, and close-fitting breeches Charles and some of the older members of court had begun to favor, but Beth clad herself as gaily as she could and still be faintly masculine. Fortunately, foppery was still in its fullest flower among the young, and the rule was, if any creature appeared too feminine to be believed, it was in all probability a man. She could not wear her yellow lutestring, but she chose from among Eliza’s disguises a suit of emerald and silver petticoat breeches that flowed in such profusion that, if not for the elegantly hosed calves exposed below, they might well have been a gown. Ribbons in a contrasting shade of pale green wove and fluttered at her breast and elbows, and her shirt, peeking through the pinking, was dyed sapphire.
She seemed calm, with just a little flutter in her breathing, and as proudly modest as a bride. She scrutinized herself in the glass, angling it to catch the dancing firelight, and pronounced herself ready. Then they snuck out into the chilly predawn gloom to meet Beth’s groom at the Triple T
ree.
They went first to the street outside the Newgate Press Yard, where it all began under the sun’s first blessed rays. There was a double-barred gate—a grate, a space between housing a drowsing guard, and another set of bars—through which the girls could just see movement.
“Oh!” Beth cried, and Eliza squeezed her hand hard, digging her nails into the flesh to bring Beth to herself.
“We are men, and we don’t know him. If Harry sees you weep he will lose heart. Be strong!”
The guard between the gates stirred himself. “You gentlemen are up betimes,” he said, yawning and scratching.
“We were never yet to bed,” Eliza said cheerily. “Why, is it morning? Pray, what is that glowing orb in the firmament? Could it be the sun I’ve heard the poets rave about? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a thing. This must be daytime, gentlemen! A novelty! What are you about, good sir? What is this unattractive place?”
The guard looked at Eliza as if she were straight out of Bedlam; but then, gentlemen could afford to be peculiar. “This ’ere’s Newgate. The prison,” he added for clarification.
Eliza strutted forward to peer through the bars. “And who are they?”
“No one you need to know about.”
“I like to know everything,” she said, handing him a golden sovereign.
He leaned close to the gate and, spitting as he spoke, said, “Not a peep of it, but that there’s the infamous Elphinstone and his band. ’E’s to be hanged today. Mum’s the word, though. If it got about, the ladies would all throw theirselves under the cart, and the men would all challenge ’im to a duel before we could ’ang ’im. ’Ere now, you’ll not be wanting to dirty yer fine clothes, sir!” For Beth had her whole body pressed to the rusty bars, her hands slipping through, yearning to be with her love.
Something had caught Zabby’s ear. “Hanged, did you say?”
“Ay, what else for the terror of the ’ighways—and the maidenheads.”
“I mean, nothing else? Only hanged? Not drawn and quartered? Not burned?”
Ladies in Waiting Page 23