Dark Angels (58 page)

When Richard left to attend Monmouth’s levee, Prince Rupert and Holmes walked through the privy garden, through Holbein Gate, to wait on Whitehall Street for Prince Rupert’s carriage to be brought round.

“I offered him something in the Isle of Wight,” Holmes said.

“Thank you, Robin. I like the lad, don’t want him crushed by this.”

“The king will forgive all if she yields.”

“She’s taking her own sweet time.”

“She knows her value. Nothing wrong with that. And a man doesn’t appreciate something unless he has to work for it.”

“You remember my writing to you of those two Frenchmen who put me under their spell with their stories of fur trade in the Colonies, in Canada, the northern Colonies across the Atlantic?”

“Something of the sort.”

“They’re back from their first expedition for us. I cannot tell you how excited I am about the prospect for trade. The king has granted me land and a charter for a fur trading company. It will be based in Hudson’s Bay, a bay a hundred times the size of anything we’ve seen, I’m told. I’m to be governor and looking for investors. Lord Cranbourne is in for ten thousand.”

“Steep.”

“Mortgage the family home, man. I tell you this is going to be big. Think of the Hollanders’ East India Company.”

Holmes laughed and shook his head.

A
T
M
ONMOUTH’S, THE
young duke made much of insisting Richard see some new object in his closet, but when they were separated from the other courtiers milling about in the bedchamber, he said, “Richard, I regard you highly. You did what you could to keep me from acting stupidly when I was in drink more times than I can remember. And you behaved discreetly when someone close to me did not. I know your affections for Mademoiselle de Keroualle are true and deep, but I also want you to know that it would be much appreciated by someone to whom I owe everything—as do you—if you dropped your suit. He knows nothing can take her place, but hopes that new duties—and honors—might allay the hurt a bit.”

Richard bowed, his face unreadable. “I am commanded in this by no one but her.”

Call your dog off, was actually what King Charles had commanded. He doesn’t know this dog, Monmouth thought, stubborn in a way Monmouth envied. I think I may be fortunate you did not love my wife, he thought, and he wondered if his growing pursuit of Richard’s sister was going to come back to haunt him. He said nothing else but showed Richard a mezzotint he’d been given by Prince Rupert, who dallied with the art the way he dallied with a dozen other things.

When they parted company, Richard went to the royal mews to see his horse. He knew they were hinting him off. Were threats next? Did he love Renée enough to endure disgrace? Yes. One could always make one’s way back from disgrace. It was like fashion, changing with time. But the deeper question was, did she love him enough?

“Have you seen Walter?” Effriam asked.

Richard petted Pharaoh’s nose. “I have not.”

“He’s been sleeping here at night, near Pharaoh. I thought I saw him the other morning, and this morning I did see him, but he ran off before I could stop him.”

“Another vagabond at Whitehall. Madame Neddie’s is closed. I would imagine he’s hungry.”

“The same thought crossed my mind.”

Richard pulled out a coin. “Leave that where he’ll find it tonight.”

“You could use another groom.”

Effriam had known Richard since he was born, had placed him on his first horse, was part and parcel of Tamworth, which was part and parcel of Richard’s soul. Richard would have guessed disapproval foremost from Effriam, not kindness.

“I could train him,” Effriam said, stern to cover what he suspected Richard would see as softness. “He’s quick, and I’m not getting any younger.”

“You’re sure? Well, when next you catch him—”

“Oh, I’ll catch him. He’s quick, but I’m cunning.”

“Offer him what you please.”

“Undergroom, no more than that.”

Richard walked to Balmoral’s, thinking about what had just occurred. Effriam, full of starch, unbendable as a post, knew Walter’s background, knew what he did to earn his living. Was Whitehall going to his head? Was Effriam creating an entourage of sorts? Other servants had them, underservants who were dependent and theirs to command. They flounced around court, self-important as minor kings. Or was he doing his duty as he saw it, bare-bones, harsh, not to his taste, but fair? Richard would bet on the latter. His father had set that example for them all.

T
HE SPACE IN
which he’d been given to work was a small, windowed chamber near the duke’s closet. Winter sun shone in. Richard moved so his back was in the sun, shuffled through the papers, stained, ink-spotted papers, the handwriting so wild as to be indecipherable at times. He wrote out what he could understand, leaving great blank spaces that meant he must ask Balmoral directly. He enjoyed the clarity and simplicity of Balmoral’s answers. Balmoral had many sets of tiny iron soldiers in wooden boxes; sometimes he’d set them out in a battle formation and talk to Richard about strategies of war, when armies faced each other across the darkling plain, each intent upon victory. Richard absorbed what Balmoral thought of sieges and armies and foreign command through his pores. Do you like war? Balmoral had asked him. I hate the killing, he had answered. Good, Balmoral had replied. You might make a decent commander, then. There’d been a “fit,” not long after Madame Neddie’s murder.

From what Richard could see of it, Balmoral went on drunks, drinking until he collapsed and his servants could put him to bed. Alice seemed to know this state of affairs and yet continued onward with her determined courtship. He could throw no stones. Did he allow Renée’s flirtation with the king to run its course? Or did he make her an ultimatum? There seemed to be no answer in his divided soul.

“I hold it fit that wise and experienced commanders when they meet with a new enemy—that is, of reputation—before they come to join battle should cause their soldiers to make trial of them by some light skirmishes,” wrote Balmoral. Richard copied the words, thinking about the practicality of what Balmoral preached, thinking about the tedium of drill that was a soldier’s lot. Drill made a soldier sharp and less easy to kill on the battlefield. He lost himself in the writing, in thinking about what he wrote as the pen shaped the words: “A good commander has to be a practical man, gauging the depth of his men’s endurance, as well as his enemies.”

A sound of bells, sweet and clear, interrupted him. These windows overlooked the park. Richard looked out. Sleighs were pulling up, bells on the horses’ bridles. Young women were descending the stairs on the side of Holbein Gate, the maids of honor, hurrying into the shelter of the stair’s portico. A last sleigh was filled with branches of holly and oak, enough to decorate chambers with signs of the Christmas season so near.

Richard saw Renée, standing near King Charles.

She was laughing and talking, her face full of life, happy. The cloak she wore was white velvet, embroidered everywhere in silver and green, white fur inside, fur that framed her face like a halo. A gift, no doubt, because he knew she hadn’t possessed such before. Huge, fat pearl drops dangled from her ears. I won these in a card game, she’d told him, and he’d been happy for her good fortune. Now, watching, he suddenly knew she had lied. King Charles leaned forward and kissed her, fully, a long kiss, never minding the public eye, and her arms went round him. The gesture of her arms froze Richard. They tried to hint him away. They offered him bribes. He ground his teeth. Help me with my confusion, she begged him. What did she—whom he thought of as his beloved—truly desire?

He knew, and the answer was sharper than a sword blade on flesh.

T
HAT AFTERNOON, WHEN
he went to find her and confront her, she wasn’t in the queen’s apartments or those of the maids of honor. She had a visitor, he was told, was receiving this visitor in one of the king’s chambers, a tiny withdrawing chamber in old rooms His Majesty seldom used anymore to be sure, but nonetheless, Richard didn’t like it. He paced up and down in the hall, drummed his fingers on a window ledge, looking out at the gray day, frowning at any page who had the misfortune to walk by him.

The door to the chamber at last opened, and Richard was surprised to see Colbert de Croissy, the ambassador from His Majesty King Louis of France, walk out. The ambassador saw Richard but didn’t acknowledge him. Anger filled him, moved aside grief. He walked in. Renée sat in a chair very close to the fire, her head leaned back, her eyes closed. The great white velvet cloak was lying carelessly on a stool. Before her was a wooden box, its lid off, wood shavings and straw around it. She opened her eyes and turned at the sound of his steps.

“Why does de Croissy call upon you?”

“He wants me to give myself to King Charles for the sake of France, and he wants me to spy on everything King Charles does and make a report to him.” She leaned forward to pick up what was in the box. “See what the king of France sends me, to show his pleasure.”

“The deuce you say! I’ll call de Croissy out and shoot him from twenty paces. And I won’t miss! Have you told His Grace Balmoral of this, or Lord Arlington?” What else did she hide? In his anger was an awareness that this was larger than he’d dreamed. When had it grown this large? Was it always more than he knew?

“Sit down by me, Richard. Move that cloak.”

“Who gave you that?”

“De Croissy, part of my New Year’s, from France.”

“Why accept it?”

“Why not? I haven’t a beautiful cloak like that. Are you going to buy me one?”

“One day I might. What else have you accepted?”

“You sound accusing.” She straightened in the chair. “What are you accusing me of?”

“Of being a simpleton if you think you may accept presents such as these and pay no return.”

“Oh, I tell de Croissy gossip I hear, nothing to harm.”

“Good God, Renée! Are you telling me you act as a spy?”

“No, of course not. King Charles tells me what to say. He finds this most amusing.”

In his anger was growing alarm. The dark shoals and eddies of court, as Alice described it, the intrigue beneath the intrigue. You cannot imagine it, Richard, she said, and you mustn’t doubt it. Was it possible Renée was a Trojan horse, a pretense of love by King Charles to throw off the French? That he was jealous of a diplomatic game? He kicked away the offending cloak, pulled the stool close, sat, took the onyx figure of some goddess from her hands, kissed them passionately, wondering in spite of himself if King Charles’s lips had been before him. “Come with me to Tamworth for Christmas, away from all this. My mother invites you.” Marry me in Tamworth, was on his lips.

“Oh, that would be lovely.”

“You’ll come, then?”

“Well…there’s to be a Christmas Eve revel, Richard, and I have the major part. There are special costumes being made, and we’ve begun to practice our dancing and singing. And the day after, we’re going to Windsor Castle, and there’s to be a feast and lord of misrule. Such as there hasn’t been since the old days, I’m told. Everyone is so excited.”

He touched the fat pearl drop at her ear. “You didn’t win these at cards, did you.” She didn’t answer, watched him carefully, something in her withdrawing; he could feel it, a guard against him going up, which brought anger back. “Does King Charles love you?”

“He says he does.”

“And do you love him? Answer with an honest heart, Renée. You owe me that.”

She threw her arms around him. “Don’t abandon me! Don’t! So many want me to do their bidding. You can’t imagine it…I won’t be able to be strong if you abandon me! I need you, Richard!” She was crying. “Don’t be angry. Don’t hate me. I can’t bear to be hated. I’m not bad.”

He rubbed away tears with his thumbs, in him a mix of tenderness and rage that was killing. You haven’t said you loved me, he was thinking as he studied her face, the beauty of it, the broad brow, the full mouth. He kissed that mouth once and twice and three times, but then anger overcame tenderness, and he stopped. There had been excitement when she’d said the king loved her, a tiny spark of pride. Deep inside him, sadness pooled: It was ending, perhaps had ended, that which had been between them. She simply hadn’t the courage to tell him. The softness he adored was their downfall, and perhaps greed, but he didn’t want to accuse her of that. “I let you free of our engagement.”

“What are you saying, Richard?”

“If you don’t go to Tamworth with me, I consider our engagement at an end.”

“It’s winter! The roads will be awful! I will be cold in the coach! It’s too far. I am to perform in a masque for His Majesty, for pity’s sake—”

He stood.

“You’re being unreasonable. Why are you being so mean and unreasonable, Richard?”

He leaned over her in the chair, his mouth close to hers, so that their breaths mingled. “I will not be second after the king.”

“But he’s the king! What can I do?”

“Choose.”

“I warned you, didn’t I, months ago? He admires me, I said, and you said, Of course he does. You allowed it!”