Dark Angels (72 page)

Little Barbara Bragge dead. Alice’s first friend at court, other than Monmouth. He could not believe he sat at her funeral. He bowed his head as prayers began, noticing out of the corner of his eye Lady Saylor sitting with her beautiful daughters and son-in-law. Her head wasn’t bowed, but her eyes were closed. This woman, with her calmness and strange distant eyes, disturbed him. As if she felt him staring, she met his gaze. He felt for a moment as if he were floating in a clear river, then she looked away again. He shook himself at the shock of the simple matter of her dropping her gaze. Beyond her sat his Dutch friend, Wilhelm Lowestroft. Let us begin a mild courtship with the Hollanders, Balmoral had said. Nothing treasonous, a light flirtation merely. It seemed there was a young Protestant prince, one William of Orange, whose mother had been King Charles and York’s sister, who hated the French king, Louis. I’d like to know him better, Balmoral had smiled. Do bring our friend Lowestroft to call.

“We brought nothing into this world,” the archbishop was saying, “and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Outside in the churchyard, the coffin was lowered into a grave. “Unto almighty God we commend the soul of our sister and of her child, departed,” began the archbishop, and when the hymn was sung, Sir Thomas went to stand in a side porch and was gratified to see Balmoral leave the throng, walk forward to join him.

P
RAYERS DONE, THERE
remained only the throwing of handfuls of dirt upon the grave. People drifted away, walking among the gravestones and table tombs, among greening trees and around clumps of blooming snowdrops, making their way to the porch, to acknowledge Balmoral and ask of Alice.

The new Lady Knollys came up to him. Little Gracen looked the woman with rouge on her cheeks and several black patches scattered here and there. Sir Thomas nodded to her. She was a handsome minx, and she knew it.

“How is Alice?” she asked.

The despair in her eyes shocked him. No bride should look so sad. “Not well.”

“Will you tell her I asked of her? Do you know if Barbara had a farewell for me?”

“I don’t, Lady Knollys.”

He watched her turn toward someone else in the milling crowd as Lady Saylor walked forward. “How does your daughter?” she asked, no coquetry about her.

The jewels she wore were wild and strange, as if from another time, something barbaric and compelling about the stones, the gold work. If her hair had once been the gold of her children’s, it was now silver and bound in long braids pinned to her head, flowers and jewels garnishing the knots, like a woman of King Arthur’s court. Time touched her face. She did not try to hide it. Sir Thomas found himself a little afraid of her. “Still with a fever.”

“I have some claims to healing. Might I visit her?”

“The king’s physician has called twice.”

“Oh, so she is better?”

“She is not,” answered Balmoral. “She’s been bled twice and each time fainted. I like it not. I’ve seen the same on the battlefield to no good effect.”

“I have some remedies for fever, old, from my mother and her mother before that. I brought them for Mrs. Sidney. Might I call this afternoon?”

“Please,” said Balmoral, and Sir Thomas pursed his lips, noting how Balmoral spoke as if Alice were already his.

“Sir,” said Richard to Balmoral, “might I have a word with you?” He whispered the idea that had come to him about the casket of letters.

Balmoral’s mouth widened into a smile as he listened. “If you succeed, you do me a service you cannot imagine. Whatever you need is yours for this.”

“Thank you, sir.” Richard found his mother standing behind a tree with Prince Rupert, who was in the act of kissing her hand. Are they flirting? thought Richard, shocked, but then he was sidetracked, remembering that Prince Rupert, in his checkered past, had been an aide to the French soldier General Turenne.

“Elizabeth is waiting in the carriage,” Richard told his mother. He watched her settle upon a time to meet this evening with Prince Rupert, who was like a large dog wagging his tail, all but barking for Jerusalem Saylor. “I wonder if I might have a word with you before you leave?” Richard asked him when his mother was in the carriage.

“Oh, more than a word, my boy. I’m at your service for whatever you need. Now, no need to stare me down. Your mother is going to sup with me and Mrs. Hughes tonight, perfectly respectable, and you cannot fault a man for admiring a lovely woman, can you? That just wouldn’t be reasonable.”

“I’m leaving His Majesty’s service. I’m going to France. If you would be so kind, it would aid me greatly if I might have a letter of introduction to both the Prince de Condé and General Turenne. It would be a greater kindness if you’d speak to no one of this. I’ll make my intentions known at the proper time.”

“You jest. We need you.”

“I must go.”

Prince Rupert studied Richard’s face for a long moment before replying. “You’re a good soldier, well on the way to being a splendid one. Now that I think on it a little, your serving Turenne can only in its turn serve us. If I live long enough, I’ll see you a captain general, I do believe. No need turning red, sir. I thought it the moment I saw you attempting to drill some discipline into that lazy excuse for a troop that calls itself the queen’s bodyguard. I’ll write your letters. Good day.” He walked away but came back as if he’d remembered something. “I have a little scheme,” he said, “which your brother-in-law has invested heavily in. I’d like to present it to you.”

“I have no funds to speak of.”

“You have property that can be mortgaged.”

“I can’t think of such things today.”

“Of course you cannot. My manners are abominable. Forgive me. Good day, Captain.”

John still stood at the grave. The diggers had begun piling dirt on the coffin now that everyone had scattered to carriages or sedan chairs. The graveyard was suddenly empty. Richard went to stand beside his friend. The sound of dirt on the coffin of a loved one was a lonely sound. The least he could do was bear it with John.

S
IR
T
HOMAS HOVERED
in the doorway as Lady Saylor bent over Alice, who was mumbling and thrashing about. She touched her hand to Alice’s forehead, then to her chest, straightened abruptly. “The fever’s too high. We need to put her in a bath to bring it down. At once.” Something in her voice made the hair at the back of Sir Thomas’s neck prickle, and he found himself shouting for servants. Balmoral, who had been standing behind him, walked into the bedchamber, looked down at the delirious young woman on the bed.

Jerusalem Saylor took off her rings and bracelets, ordered everyone from the room but maidservants, and bathed Alice herself. When Alice was wrapped in wool blankets and her fur cloak, her teeth chattering, Jerusalem took powder from a box she’d brought, dropped it to a touch of wine, added water, and made her swallow it. She ordered a fire built and sat before it, a trunk at her back for support, holding a shivering, bundled Alice, who moaned and trembled as if she were naked in snow. Balmoral returned, pulled a chair nearby, his eyes never leaving Alice, who slept and shook and woke to shake and sleep again.

Afternoon moved into twilight, twilight into night. Perryman came to lead Balmoral to supper and a bed for the night. Sir Thomas, told Lady Saylor had refused to leave Alice to sleep, walked into the bedchamber.

“She needs the touch, the heat, of another body,” Jerusalem said to his protests, of someone who has healing in them, she didn’t say. “Would you send round a note to Prince Rupert canceling my supper tonight?”

“Of course, dear lady.” And Sir Thomas retreated, the sight of his shivering, moaning daughter, eyes half-open, unfocused, too much for him.

Perryman, bringing wine and cheese for Jerusalem, paused in the doorway, his nostrils flaring at the scent from a candle. The fragrance was sharp in the lungs, but calming. “If I might…that is, if you would trust me, I will hold Mistress Alice for a time so that you might rest,” he said.

Jerusalem’s brows rose. “Let me have your hand.” She was imperious. She held it in hers, seemed satisfied with what she felt. “Keep her pulled close, your arms wrapped tight as if she were a child.”

“Yes, I’ll do it just as you have.”

“Build the fire again to roaring.”

That done, she lay down at the foot of Alice’s bed, curling herself up like a cat, and slept for several hours, waking at midnight. She washed her face and hands and went to a window to look out at the night sky. “Perryman, come here.”

He laid Alice down, joined her at the window. “Is that someone there, against the tree?” Under a tree in the garden was a shadowed figure.

“Yes, madam.”

“Who is it?”

“He, ah, returned with me from Whitehall when I delivered my message to Prince Rupert, asking that I trouble no one with his arrival. He is, ah, a friend, concerned for Mistress Alice’s welfare.”

“Why not invite him in?”

“I did so, madam. He refused, requested that I, ah, trouble no one with news of his presence. How does she?”

“Continues to toss and fret.”

Together, they gave Alice more fever powder. Jerusalem arranged herself to hold Alice as Perryman made the fire spark and roar again. Toward morning, Alice began to perspire. She tried to throw off blankets, but Jerusalem stopped her, wrapped her as if she were a baby in swaddling. When morning light pierced the window and warmed the room with light, Alice fell into a quieter sleep. There was dampness on her forehead and around her mouth, which Jerusalem touched with a finger and smelled, then nodded as if satisfied.

“Is the fever broken?” It was Balmoral.

“Yes. Will you call for the servants to carry her to bed? Perryman, we’ll need to warm the bed first, and we’ll need a hot brick wrapped in flannel at her feet. When that brick cools, it must be replaced with another hot one.”

Sir Thomas appeared in the doorway, plump, vibrant in a robe of blue and yellow, a red silk cap, embroidered slippers. “Is she better? They tell me she’s better!”

“A bit,” said Jerusalem. “I’m going to leave my fever powders with you. You must give them to her three times this day. There’s also another candle in my bag, which has a special scent. I’m going to ask that you light it and allow it to burn to nothing.”

Sir Thomas turned on his heel and walked blindly downstairs into his great chamber, gasping now and again at tears he couldn’t stop. Alice was never ill. The sight of her high fever combined with Barbara’s dying had left him as emotional as a woman. It was only now that he could admit how afraid he had been of Alice dying this night. At the sound of Jerusalem descending the stairs, he wiped his face and walked into the hall. Balmoral was with her, Perryman holding one of his arms to aid him.

“May I give you breakfast, dear lady?” asked Sir Thomas.

“No, thank you.”

Balmoral said, “My carriage is outside. I have the honor of escorting her back to Whitehall.” To Sir Thomas’s eyes, he was the one who now looked ill and feverish, too thin and waxen. “I wish to be called if her condition should worsen; otherwise I will rest this day.”

“If this young man”—Jerusalem turned her eyes on Perryman—“cares for her as well as he did last night, she will not worsen. You have a most excellent servant, Sir Thomas.”

As the front door closed behind his guests, Sir Thomas turned on his footman. “She didn’t offer you a place with her, did she?”

“She did not, sir.”

“Well, if she does, you’re to tell me at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

I
N THE CARRIAGE,
Balmoral leaned back, closed his eyes. He made a sound, something between a grunt of pain and a sigh. “I don’t wish that girl to die.”

“She won’t, not now.”

Balmoral opened his eyes. “Was she near death?”

“Yes. The physician attending her was most unskilled.”

“I thought so, too.”

“She needs to leave London.”

Balmoral didn’t answer, kept his eyes upon her face.

“I want to take her back with me to Tamworth. Would you allow it?”

“Why should I?”

“I want to guard against the fever returning and let her sleep in the sunlight, under a window where roses and fennel bloom. I think she requires great quiet at the moment, requires being away from this”—a sweep of her hand indicated London and the court—“from memories too cruel yet to bear. She wished to die; you mustn’t forget that. She tried to will it.”