The Queen's Exiles (26 page)

“We turn west.” He pointed down the street that led to the canal.

His horsemen exchanged puzzled looks.

“Now,” Carlos ordered.

The driver, mindlessly obeying, flicked the reins and the wagon began moving. The horsemen, too, turned their mounts to the street Carlos indicated.

He led them, uneasy, a prickle of sweat on his back. Was the crowd big enough after all to mask his detour? He heard the wagon creak behind him, heard the slow-clomping hooves of the nag and of his men’s horses. He longed to order them to speed up, but that might raise suspicion—not from his men, who would do what he commanded, but from people in the street who were heading in the opposite direction, toward the execution square. If even one of them mentioned the odd occurrence to a guard there and the guard sent word up to Alba’s lieutenants, Alba would send men galloping after Carlos.

He dared a glance back. Fenella gaped at him in stunned wonder. Doorn seemed unaware, feverish, barely conscious. Behind them, Alba’s form in the stands was small as it receded, and Carlos could not tell where the man was looking. Was he watching in astonishment as his prize prisoners were taken away?
If so
,
I’ll soon be kicking from one of those gibbets
.

Willing that thought away, he turned and straightened in the saddle. Last night, telling Isabel about the murdered beggar girl, he’d known she was right about Alba. No pension was worth working for such a man. Back in England Carlos would have to deal with his rocky finances, but that lay in the future—that is, if he lived to see England again. Right now, the decision to try to save Fenella and her husband made him strangely exhilarated. Death might be his reward. But he had faced death before.
As long as Isabel got away, it’s worth it.

The canal was not far—it ran through the city center—and in five minutes they reached the wharf. It was busy, bustling with merchants and barge hands, travelers with baggage, customers at chandlery sheds. A few looked with curiosity at the prisoners in the wagon led by the breast-plated commander and his men, but the Spanish martial presence throughout the city was too familiar a sight to raise concern.

Carlos halted the party. He turned Fausto. “The prisoners are going to Antwerp,” he told his men. “From there they’ll sail to Spain to be executed for His Majesty’s view. The Antwerp Guard on the barge will take over from here. You’re dismissed.” He ordered them back to barracks.

They looked mildly surprised at being freed from duty so early in the day but far from unwilling. They nodded to him and turned their mounts. Carlos watched them trot away.

He dismounted. “You too, Freyer,” he told the veteran on the wagon seat. “Back to barracks. Down you get.”

Freyer made no objection to the unusual command that would leave the wagon driverless. He climbed down.

“Walk straight back. No stopping.”

The man blinked at Carlos for a moment. Then, obeying orders as he had done all his life, he turned and trudged down the bustling wharf.

Carlos led Fausto to the back of the wagon and tied the reins to it.

“Spain?” Fenella said, her voice weak, hoarse with horror. “To burn?”

He swung up onto the wagon and went to her.

“Have mercy,” she said. “Kill us now.” Her haggard eyes begged him. “Quick and clean. Please.”

He unsheathed his sword. Doorn blinked at him with fever-fogged eyes. Fenella straightened with a spurt of strength, ready for death. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Carlos sliced the blade behind her arms, severing the leather tie, cutting her free.

She rocked on her feet, gaping up at him. “What . . . ?”

He crossed to Doorn and cut him loose. Doorn slumped at the sudden freedom. Fenella rushed to him and caught him in her arms.

“Lay him down,” Carlos said as he hopped off the wagon. “You too.” He pulled a tarpaulin from his saddlebag and tossed it up to her. “Cover yourselves. And be prepared for a rough ride.”

She blinked in shock. In hope. “Where?”

No time to talk. Guards might already be galloping this way. He left her and climbed up onto the wagon seat and flicked the reins. The horse lurched and the wagon creaked into motion. Carlos glanced back. Fenella was spreading the tarpaulin over herself and Doorn.

Carlos drove the wagon north, making for the road to Antwerp. He whipped the nag and it broke into a startled canter. The rickety wagon rattled and groaned, lurching at every turn, jouncing the couple on the hard floorboards. People lurched out of their path and Carlos glared at anyone who was slow to make way. He heard Fausto cantering in train with his smooth, powerful gait.

The Laeken Gate rose dead ahead. Two soldiers of the city guard stood viewing all who came and went. Carlos gritted his teeth and slowed the horse.

The guards were deferential to Carlos; his steel breastplate and plumed helmet were his permit. But their duty was to question all who passed on execution days. One walked to the back of the wagon, asking Carlos as a courtesy, “Where are you bound, sir?”

He mentioned a town and added loudly, “The cemetery.”

The guard idly lifted a corner of the tarpaulin. Carlos threw an anxious glance over his shoulder. Would Fenella take his cue? Yes, thank God, she lay as still as death. Doorn looked unconscious, his grisly wound apparent. “The governor wants them out,” Carlos said, and added quietly, as though to forestall panic lest any of the public heard, “in case it’s plague.”

The guard dropped the tarpaulin in revulsion. The other one had heard, too, and quickly waved Carlos through. “God speed you, sir.”

As soon as they were clear of the gate he whipped the horse and the wagon rattled northward. Traffic coming onto the city was thin since it was an execution day, with many shops and markets closed. The land was flat, sparsely treed. Fields stretched out on either side, blue-flowered flax, golden barley.
No place to hide.

Carlos reached the bisecting road that ran east toward Maastricht and the German lands and west toward Ghent and the coast. Just north of this crossroads the road rose slightly over a bridge, allowing a stream to run beneath.

Once over the bridge Carlos slowed, taking the wagon to the side of the road. The verge leading down to the stream was weedy, the water sluggish and brown. Besides the bridge, the only structure in sight was a windmill lazily moving to the east. In a distant field, men were scything grain. Behind, to the south a half mile across the flatland, the Laeken Gate was still visible. A black-robed priest on a donkey was ambling toward the bridge. In a few minutes he would reach it.

Carlos hopped down from the wagon, leaving the winded nag breathing hard. Fausto, in train, was frisky. The couple in the wagon lay unmoving under the tarpaulin. “Get down,” Carlos told Fenella. “Be quick.”

She looked out from under the covering, her gaunt eyes hopeful but wary as she scanned the flat countryside. Her husband lay beside her, blinking at the sky.

“Bring him, too. Can he walk?”

She helped Doorn to his feet. He groaned, as much in bewilderment as pain, it seemed to Carlos.
Fevered from his wound, for sure. Would he make it?

“What’s happening?” Fenella asked Carlos as she led Doorn to the edge of the wagon.

“Take him down there, under the bridge,” Carlos told her, helping the man down. Doorn felt all bones. But there was a core of strength about him, a fierceness to resist the fever. Carlos glanced toward the oncoming priest. “Quick.”

Together they led Doorn down into the tangle of weeds under the bridge. There, on the shadowed slope where the weeds were thinner, Fenella got her husband to sit. He was shivering, disoriented, pale of face.

“What’s happening?” she said again to Carlos. “What are we doing here?”

“Waiting.”

“For what?”

Carlos was not superstitious, but a voice inside him warned that telling the plan might curse it. He couldn’t let himself think of the consequences. “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” he said, and saw from her face that she remembered. He’d said those words to her in her dungeon cell.

“Thank you,” she said shakily.

Doorn moaned. They both looked at him. “He needs water,” she said.

Carlos had a wineskin of water strapped to Fausto. He was glad to be active. “Stay here,” he told Fenella. He went to his horse and fetched the wineskin. The priest on his donkey was nearing, close enough now that Carlos could hear the faint clomp of the hooves. He brought back the water and Fenella helped Doorn drink it. Some dribbled over his parched lips. He raised his eyes to her as though recognizing her for the first time. He motioned for her to drink, too, an impulse more instinctive than conscious. The gesture struck Carlos. Even in extremity the man was concerned for his wife.

Isabel
. Worry gripped Carlos’s heart.
Did she get away?

Fenella took a swallow of water. She looked unsteady, exhausted, beaten. Carlos had seen soldiers with that look, too traumatized to go on. She needed some good news. “The girl that Alba ordered killed,” he said. “She wasn’t Thornleigh’s daughter.” He explained that Alba had brought two beggar children from the street and dressed them in fine clothes to convince her. She looked horrified. She sat down beside Doorn, stunned, taking it in. When she looked up at Carlos again he saw a flicker of joyful relief in her eyes. She cared about Thornleigh; that was clear. Did Doorn know? No time to think about that now. “Stay here,” Carlos said again, and left them to go back up to the wagon.

The priest reached the bridge, a wrinkled old man, slumped from lack of muscles. He nodded to Carlos.

“Good day, Father,” Carlos said, tucking the tarpaulin into his saddlebag. The stallion blocked the priest’s view of the end of the bridge and the fugitives beneath it.

The priest halted his donkey. “Trouble with your wagon, Commander?”

“Just giving the nag a rest.”

“Ah,” the priest said with a chuckle, “we old nags do need that from time to time.” He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his eyes of dust from the road.

Fausto tossed his head. Carlos held the saddle horn tight to keep the stallion from moving. He could see, in the distance to the south, some movement at the Laeken Gate. A wagon coming this way. Too far to make out any details.

“Are you bound for Antwerp as I am?” the priest asked. “I’ll rest with you, and then we can travel together.”

“I’d like that, Father, if I weren’t going the opposite way. I’m for the capital. So don’t let me keep you. You’ll want a bed before sundown, and your beast is slow.”

The priest nodded with a sigh. “Too true.” He tucked away his handkerchief, wished Carlos good day, kicked his donkey, and plodded on.

Carlos did not look at the slope beneath the bridge. The priest might glance back. Instead, Carlos watched the wagon coming from the Laeken Gate. It was coming fast.

His pulse picked up. Not a wagon. A coach. Two horses, hooves pounding the road. He watched it come on, half-hoping, half-dreading. In the silence, the windmill creaked.

Then, sunlight glinted off the door’s golden crest.
Yes! The duchess’s coach!

Just before the bridge the coach clattered to a halt. Carlos swung open the door. Isabel was already on her feet, arms outstretched to him. Her smile thrilled him. So did her bravery. This rendezvous had been her idea. He’d been afraid for her safety, but she had insisted. “Are you all right?” he asked as he lifted her down.

“Yes, fine.”

“Andrew and Nell?”

“Safely away this morning with Hughes.”

He let out a breath of relief. All was going as they’d planned. So far.

“Where are they?” Isabel said, taking in the empty wagon in dismay. “Could you not get them?”

He glanced at the two coachmen side by side on the seat, one holding the reins, both looking at him with interest. He said in a low voice, “What about the coachmen?”

“It’s all right,” she assured him. “I had Frances instruct them to pick up my passengers.”

Carlos had to smile. Isabel had managed things so well. “They’re here. Hold on.” He went down the slope and under the bridge. Fenella sat huddled in fearful anticipation with Doorn, her arm around him protectively. She must have heard the coach stop. “Don’t worry,” Carlos told her. “It’s a friend. Come.”

He got them on their feet, brought them up to the coach. “You remember my wife?”

“Madam!” Fenella exclaimed in amazement.

“Mistress Doorn,” Isabel said warmly, “I heard what you’ve suffered, you and your husband.” The sight of Doorn’s blood-scabbed gash clearly rocked her.

Carlos had his eyes on movement at the Laeken Gate in the distance. Horsemen, leaving the gate. Ten or twelve of them. Galloping.

“Get in, and help him in,” he told Fenella. “If anyone stops the coach my wife will say you’re her servants and she’s taking Doorn to a doctor. You’re going to Antwerp. Then, get yourself and your husband on the first ship for England.”

“Yes . . . yes.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, how can we ever thank you?”

“By staying alive. Now get in.”

She was so overcome, she kissed his cheek. He looked at Isabel. She saw the kiss and looked surprised, then blinked it away as though aware that in such a crisis who would
not
be overcome?

Fenella helped Doorn into the coach, then got in herself. Isabel said to Carlos with a quick smile, “I’m so big, you get in first and help me up, will you?”

He held her back. “I’m not going.”

She looked appalled. “What?”

He glanced at the riders coming this way. Sunlight glinted off their breastplates and helmets. They would reach the bridge within minutes. Isabel followed his gaze. She stiffened. “Alba’s men! Carlos, come! Hurry!”

“No. Get in quickly now, and go. You’ll be fine.”

She balked. “No! You can’t stay here. They’ll take you!”

“I won’t stay.” He untied Fausto from the back of the wagon.

“I’m going to lead them away from you. When they find the wagon empty they’ll come after me to find Doorn.”

“But if they capture you, Alba will—”