At The King's Command (33 page)

“‘Destiny falls like a stone into still water,’” Juliana said, remembering Zara, and the soldiers, and the fire casting bloodred shadows on the snow. She had lost everything that night—her home, her family, all the things that made her a Romanov.

Yet the tears in her eyes when she looked up at Stephen burned with a welcome heat. She had traded her plans for revenge for something far more lasting and hopeful and bright. Out of the darkness had come this man, this love, this life.

Stephen was looking at her oddly. “‘Destiny falls…?’”

A chill wind blew in from the sea. “Something I heard once, long ago. A gypsy prophecy. I am still not certain I understand, but I think, somehow, she knew. Zara knew.”

Juliana glanced one last time at Alexei. “Yet I wonder if I ever had the power to stop it. If I had not drawn my knife, caused the horse to rear—”

“Then I would have killed him myself. Willingly.” He turned and walked away from Alexei Shuisky. When they reached Capria, Stephen set Juliana gently on her feet and cradled her face between his hands.

“Juliana, you are my world. I told you so last night. Why did you leave me?”

“I did not want you to have to fight Alexei again.” She touched his stubbled cheek and felt a surge of tenderness.

His shoulders trembled. “It’s my fault. I gave you little reason to trust me. I can’t blame you for telling me nothing of Alexei. Or of the baby.”

She caught her breath in surprise and fear. “You know of that, too?”

“Aye. Ah, Juliana, would that I could take back my harsh words. A child is a gift from God to be cherished whether it be flawed or perfect. I will love our child as I have come to love Oliver—as you taught me to love him.”

She heard the catch in his voice. “Stephen? Is Oliver well?”

“He had an attack. A bad one. He only seemed to improve when I promised to find you. He was calmer after that.”

“We’d best go and see, then.”

A faint shout drifted down from the bank above the shore. Juliana looked up. There, on the edge, stood Laszlo and Jonathan and their mismatched company of gypsies. All in a line, linked by the necks with rope, stood the defeated Russians.

The gypsy warriors raised their fists with a shout of triumph. Rodion drew Jillie into an ardent embrace.

Juliana smiled at her husband. “At last I think our adventures are over.”

He kissed her, warming the chill salt air from her lips, and she felt the love crest inside her like a wave, breaking over her and showering her with an aching tenderness.

Stephen lifted his mouth from hers, and his hand stole inside her cloak to caress the place, where, warm within her, a new life grew.

“No, my love,” he whispered, “they are just beginning.”

Summer 1548

“
G
od have mercy on us all, my lord, he’s done it again!” Puffing with exertion, Nance Harbutt burst into the garden. Once hidden by a dark maze, the cottage and yard now lay wide open to the world.

“Who’s done what?” With his firstborn daughter tugging at his hand and his youngest child riding high on his broad shoulders, Stephen walked toward Nance. He passed his twin sons, Simon and Sebastian, who were busy playing Muscovy Company with toy ships in the fishpond. Nine years earlier, King Henry had placed Stephen at the head of the trading venture.

The housekeeper flapped her apron vigorously to fan her flushed cheeks. “Got himself sent down from Cambridge again, he did, and brought that lot of outlaws home with him! Didn’t I tell you, my lord, the lad was trouble? Delving and donging and—”

“Nance.” Stephen bit back a smile.

“—swiving wenches like there’s no tomorrow—”

“Nance.”

She thrust up her chin, knocking her wimple askew. Natalya, who rode Stephen’s shoulders, giggled.

“Aye, my lord?” the housekeeper asked.

“Mind your tongue around the girls.”

She quivered with indignation. “I speak naught but the truth. Marry, my lord, what’s the world coming to, with a puling boy on the throne and those Anabaptists mocking the sacraments? Why, no wonder your big lout of a son has no shred of moral—”

“Oliver!”
Belinda, the elder daughter, squealed and sped down the lane toward a small train of lumbering caravans. Hard on her heels were Simon and Sebastian. Natalya squirmed her way down from Stephen’s shoulders and joined her brothers and sister.

Scolding for all she was worth, Nance stalked after the herd of running children.

Stephen leaned against the basin of the fountain to wait. Some joyous, ineffable impulse caused him to look back at the cottage in time to see Juliana emerge with Laszlo. The aging gypsy man had given up the wandering life to settle in the snug house. They were flanked by four elegant windhounds, all sired by Pavlo on a dam brought to England from one of the early voyages to Russia.

Juliana walked toward Stephen. Lush, heavy roses bloomed in the arbor that arched over the path, creating a frame for her silk-clad form. Bearing his children had thickened her waist, and he cherished every single extra inch.

“By God,” he said, holding out his hand for her, “you do dim the beauty of roses, my love.”

She smiled as he drew her to his side. The fountain burbled quietly into the fragrant stillness, and a warm wind
rustled through the ivy that grew thick upon the whimsical topiary beasts Stephen had made so long ago for a boy who hid from the world.

The memory brought a sudden thickness to his throat. Now he watched Oliver, vast and golden as a young god, leap down from the gypsy wagon and greet his half brothers and sisters.

From the second wagon, the children of Jillie and Rodion poured like an army of ants and joined in the fray.

“What has your son done this time?” Juliana asked.

“
My
son?” Stephen glared at her with mock indignation. “Why is he always
my
son when trouble arises?”

“Surely he gets his penchant for mischief from you.”

“Indeed? I think it was the fact that he was raised by a gypsy horse thief who refused to bathe—”

“Until you gave me a dunking in the millstream,” she reminded him.

He laughed and pressed his lips to her silky, sun-warmed hair. “We are both at fault. The boy’s as spoiled as last year’s cider.”

But as they watched Oliver cavorting with the little ones on the dusty road, neither regretted indulging him. He had weathered a hellish sickness, and then, when he had begun to sprout his first beard, the attacks had almost ceased. Now only on the rarest of occasions did the illness plague him.

Juliana trailed her hand in the water. “You had best find out his latest offense and prescribe a suitable penance. I wonder what he did. I hope it doesn’t involve the provost’s wife this time.”

“Or stealing the statuary in King’s College.”

“Or singing bawdy songs at chapel.”

They both tried to summon anger, and they both failed. Oliver was on his hands and knees now, surrounded by squirming children and barking dogs.

“Ah, love,” Stephen said, letting the music of his children’s laughter fill his ears. “Perhaps he simply needs a good woman to tame him.”

She smiled and shook her hand dry, then slid her arms around his neck. “Perhaps,” she whispered. “It worked for you.”

As he bent to kiss her, the wind swept a rain of petals down into the fountain, and he saw himself reflected there with his wife, a shimmering image lit by the sun glinting off clear water, the ever-widening ripples enclosing them in the circle of eternity.

I
n Tudor times, asthma was a misunderstood and poorly defined disease, which accounts for the often brutal and almost universally ineffective treatments endured by sufferers such as the fictional Oliver.

The symptoms of asthma had, however, been successfully treated for millennia by the Chinese and by the ancient Romans with medicine made from the shrub called ephedra. Although the use of ephedra disappeared with the fall of Rome and was not rediscovered until the nineteenth century, the medicine was still common in the east.

Itinerant gypsies, their population flung from Kashmir to the British Isles, might have encountered the ephedra plant, called
mahuang
by the Chinese.

Ephedrine, derived from the shrub, is still used today in the treatment of asthma.

Dear Reader,

Something old is new again. I’m very proud to bring you a brand-new edition of the Tudor Rose trilogy, first published about fifteen years ago.

These books were researched and written when the information superhighway was a mere goat track. But the themes and story lines are timeless, exemplifying the things that have always been important to me, both as a reader and a writer: fiercely honest emotion, ordinary people experiencing extraordinary challenges, passion and adventure, and of course, a satisfying ending.

In addition to being revised, the books have been given a new lease on life with fresh titles. Book One, originally titled
Circle in the Water
and now called
At the King’s Command
, was the winner of a Holt Medallion. Book Two, originally called
Vows Made in Wine,
is now
The Maiden’s Hand,
and was a finalist for a RITA® Award. Book Three, also a RITA® Award finalist, was titled
Dancing on Air
and is now
At the Queen’s Summons.

It is with pleasure that I invite you to step back in time, into a vanished world of court intrigue, where sovereigns ruled by the scaffold, and men and women dared to risk everything for love.

2009