House of Shadows (16 page)

‘Wait a moment …’ Holly groped for a chair, sat down. ‘I don’t quite understand. Are you saying that Lavinia made everything up?’

‘I haven’t read the original, of course,’ John said, ‘but the published diary is generally considered to be pure imagination. Well, not so pure. But it was certainly successful. Lavinia and the maid both reputedly made a fortune from it. Lavinia was certainly able to retire from her profession on the proceeds.’

‘I … see,’ Holly said slowly. It felt as though the rug had been pulled from under her feet. She had been invested in Lavinia’s story. She had liked her. Now she was not sure what to believe. Perhaps the next step was to read the biography after all, and discover what had happened to Lavinia after she had put not only her body but also her life up for sale.

She could hear Hester and Bonnie returning from their walk and got up, reaching for the kettle. ‘Poor Ben,’ she said. ‘I do hope he didn’t put too much faith in Lavinia’s stories.’

‘That was lovely!’ Hester came in with a spring in her step, Bonnie all eager and alert by her side. ‘You are lucky to have some time here, darling – there are so many wonderful walks.’

‘I haven’t had chance to explore them all yet,’ Holly said, ‘but I imagine Bonnie and I will have a great time.’

‘I brought you these,’ Hester said, holding out little bunch of pale blue flowers. ‘I don’t suppose I should have picked them since they’re wild—’ regret tinged her voice for a second, ‘but there were loads of them and they looked so pretty. They’re growing down by that big sarsen stone where the brook still runs.’

‘Water violets,’ John said, peering at them. ‘In folklore, a
quiet, dignified flower that is supposed to bring peace and reconnect people who have barriers between them.’

‘Is that so?’ Hester’s voice was warm. ‘Then let’s pray that they help bring Ben home.’

Holly went to the cupboard to take out a little glass vase.

‘There,’ Hester said, as she filled it with water and arranged the flowers in it, ‘I knew that would look lovely.’

‘It’s good that something still flowers in this heat,’ Holly said, ‘and that you found somewhere where the stream still runs.’ She peered more closely at the flowers. ‘I don’t know much about wildflowers but they look a bit familiar. I know!’ She reached for Lavinia’s diary. ‘Look, there’s a sketch of one here.’

Sure enough the little sketch she remembered from the opening pages of the book was of a water violet. Lavinia had captured it beautifully, the long stem, the delicate tracery of leaves, the deceptively simple petals. Lavinia must have had considerable artistic talent, unless the mysterious Clara Rogers had been responsible for the illustrations too.

It was only later, when John and Hester had gone home and Bonnie was stretched out across the flagstones in utter contentment, that Holly wondered about the violets. Lavinia could not have seen them when she was at Ashdown Park because she had visited in the winter. Perhaps there had been a book of local flora and fauna in the library that she had copied. Or perhaps the water violet was special to her in some way.

Holly dozed too, in snatches of dreams, until the ringing of the phone brought her abruptly awake. She grabbed it, only to discover that it wasn’t her mobile that was ringing,
but Ben’s phone, which she had kept charged and tucked away in the dresser next to the crystal mirror. She flew across the room to answer it and fumbled with the drawer, her fingers slipping in her haste, her heart pounding.

‘Hello?’

She knew someone was at the other end even though they didn’t speak. She could feel their presence in the silence. There was a sense of desperation to it that reached out to her.

‘Hello?’ she said again, more urgently. ‘Who is this, please?’

Suddenly there was a jumble of voices, quick, muffled, and then nothing else, only the stealthy click of the line being cut.

Wassenaer Hof, The Hague, 1635

T
here was a new lady in waiting at the court, a sly, insipid creature called Margaret Carpenter whom the gentlemen seemed to find very pleasing. Elizabeth did not recall appointing her as one of her ladies but this was not surprising. Mistress Carpenter was the niece of very old friends and they would have assumed, as people did, that it was perfectly acceptable for Margaret to take up a place at the Wassenaer Hof. People assumed much. They had done so since Elizabeth’s earliest days in Heidelberg, and she had always been too generous, too eager to please, to disabuse them.

She could remember vividly the days when she was first married and Colonel Schomberg, her steward, had stalked through her chambers at the castle, barking at the footmen to stand up straight and stop flirting with the maids, exhorting
Elizabeth to be less profligate in her spending. Poor Schomberg. He had gone to his grave telling her it was better to be feared and respected than to be loved. She had tried, oh how she had tried, to follow his strictures, but in the end she would always give too much away, whether it was money, jewels, or her patronage.

Margaret’s arrival had coincided with the return of William Craven from England. Elizabeth felt a hot wave of shame engulf her as she remembered how warmly she had greeted him. It had been several years and the surprise of seeing him without warning had banished all artifice. Her heart had leapt with pleasure and she had found herself smiling as he bowed over her hand.

‘You came back,’ she said, foolishly, ‘I did not think—’ Fortunately she had stopped herself before she had spilled too many secrets.

I did not think you would return to me …

It was a shock to realise how much she had missed him.

Then she had seen Margaret standing behind him. Margaret had dropped down into the deepest curtsey before her. Yet even through the pretty show of deference Elizabeth could sense the other woman’s dislike. She was a good judge of character. She had met people who loved her, people who hated her, people who were poor at dissembling and people who were the best liars in the world, and she knew Margaret both despised her and was a very accomplished liar.

‘Majesty.’ Margaret’s gaze was lowered respectfully but Elizabeth saw the quicksilver upward glance, full of flirtation that she flashed towards William Craven.

‘Is this your wife, my lord?’ she asked coolly, knowing it was not. Craven had flushed brick red and stammered an introduction and Margaret had given a trill of artificial laughter that had held no amusement at all. Elizabeth knew it was a cheap revenge. Craven had stood there like a foolish, gaping schoolboy and Margaret was branded a whore, which was exactly what she had intended when she had singled them out before the entire court.

Craven was not in love with Margaret, Elizabeth thought now, but he was addled by lust. She had seen it before, many times. The court was too small and the atmosphere too feverish for any affair to be kept quiet. And men were so often fools, losing cool reason in hot desire. But she did not like it. She realised that she had thought of William Craven as hers to command; that even if she could not have him herself he was still her liegeman.

She had tried to reason with herself. She was not her godmother, Elizabeth of England, who had kept her favourites dangling on a string like the puppets they were. She was a widow devoted to her husband’s memory and her children’s future, a stateswoman now. She was the one who had sent Craven away, because it was politic, because she did not trust herself. She could hardly blame him if he had found comfort elsewhere. Yet she did blame him. She was furious with him. The jealousy ate at her like a maggot in an apple.

She crossed to the desk, littered with correspondence from England, from her brother Charles, from Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, from her friend Sir Thomas Roe, all full of the intricacies of politics and diplomacy, the endless, pointless machinations of power and struggle.
Burn after reading, Roe had written, but there was no fire. It was too hot a night. Elizabeth took the letter and held it to the candle flame, watching it curl and wither to ash. That, she thought, would prevent her enemies from being bored by the domestic trivialities of Lady Roe’s life in the Northamptonshire countryside.

There was another letter, from her brother-in-law Prince Louis Philippe, Duke of Simmern, written in cipher. Louis Philippe warned of the imminent fall of the Palatine once again to the Imperial army. Frederick’s tomb at Frankenthal was in danger of being despoiled, opened, his body desecrated and dragged through the streets wearing a paper crown.

Elizabeth pressed a hand to her chest as though to push down the waves of nausea the image engendered. When she had first received the letter she had been violently sick. The passage of a couple of days had done little to calm the horror. Something had to be done, for Frederick and for the legacy buried with him. His body might be worth a fortune to the Emperor’s propagandists but the value of the items buried in his tomb was incalculable.

She called a footman who came, yawning, from the door.

‘Send for Lord Craven.’

It was late; the court was abed. A vision came to her of Craven lying naked with Margaret Carpenter amidst his tangled sheets, drinking wine together and talking in intimately low voices as the candle burned down.

She snapped a quill between her fingers and the ink splattered.

‘Stay,’ she said. ‘I have changed my mind. Leave him to his sleep. I will send for him in the morning.’

‘No,’ Craven said. ‘Absolutely not. I forbid it.’

Elizabeth was amused. Her life had been hedged about by constraint from the earliest time even though most people would not have believed it to be so. It was a fact that there were more things a queen could not do than things that she could. Craven was demonstrating that now.

‘You must see the necessity,’ she said.

Craven scowled. He looked angry and determined and it was oddly endearing. ‘I cannot say that I do,’ he said.

They were sitting in the scented garden behind the Wassenaer Hof. The palace’s tumble of gables were silhouetted against a bright blue summer sky. Sun struck across the brass face of the sundial on its plinth in front of them. Elizabeth had chosen a place where they could be alone so that no one could overhear the conversation. It was not going well; in fact it was going worse than she had imagined and her expectations had not been high in the first place.

‘Spanish troops are threatening to retake Frankenthal,’ she said. ‘The Swedes have given up all attempts to oppose them in Southern Germany—’

‘I am aware of the state of the war.’ Craven forgot himself sufficiently to interrupt her. Elizabeth sighed inwardly. God protect her from men who did not care to be lectured in war craft by a woman.

‘Then you will realise,’ she said carefully, ‘that if they take the town there is every likelihood that they will disinter my lord’s remains and use them for their own purposes. They will parade his corpse through the streets, very likely
dismember it and offer it every insult imaginable—’ She broke off, hearing the quiver in her voice and not wishing to reveal her vulnerability. The previous night she had again been stalked by nightmares of all the terrible things that might happen to Frederick’s corpse if Frankenthal fell to the enemy.

‘I understand the necessity of preserving His Majesty’s body from any insult.’ Craven’s voice had softened. ‘Can the Duke not arrange safe burial elsewhere?’

‘Nowhere is safe.’ In her agitation Elizabeth got to her feet and stalked across to the sundial, turning so abruptly that her skirts almost snapped the stems of lavender that overhung the path. The scent filled the air. She wondered when she had first started to dislike the soapy smell of it.

‘Simmern is taking it … him … to Metz.’ It seemed ridiculous, macabre. Her brother-in-law was hauling her husband’s corpse about the countryside as though it was a sack of firewood. ‘We agreed that Frederick should be reinterred at Sedan.’

‘Which is a good plan.’ Craven sounded easier, as though he thought he could talk sense into her. ‘Leave Simmern to deal with this, Your Majesty. You need have no involvement in it.’

‘You are not listening to me.’ Elizabeth rubbed some verbena leaves between her fingers. The sharp citrus smell banished the softer scent of the lavender and helped to clear her head. ‘I have to go to Metz,’ she repeated. ‘I have to take back the crystal mirror.’

Craven stood up too now, irritation evident in the taut lines of his body. He ran a hand through his hair in a quick,
impatient gesture. This time, though, he managed to keep a curb on his temper. ‘Majesty,’ he said. ‘If you fear the power of the mirror surely it is better to allow it to be reinterred with your husband?’ His tone made it quite clear what he thought of the whims of superstitious women.

Elizabeth ignored the implied slight. ‘I was prepared to allow it to be buried with him whilst it was safe,’ she said. ‘But now – Craven, don’t you see?’ She spread her hands in appeal. ‘The coffin could be robbed on the way to Sedan. Or the Spanish could overtake the cortege. Anything might happen and if Frederick’s body fell into the wrong hands only imagine what they might do to harness the power of the mirror. It has already wrought enough destruction. I cannot take this risk.’

Craven had come up to her. He took her shoulders in his hands and held her still as he scanned her face, his hazel gaze as fierce and sharp as a hawk. She did not reproach him for his familiarity or move away from beneath his touch even though she imagined his hands on Margaret’s bare body and that made her shiver.

‘You really believe that,’ he said slowly. ‘You think it was the black magic of the Knights that was responsible for the loss of Bohemia and your husband’s death and all manner of ills that have befallen you all.’

‘The Knights tried to harness the power of the mirror and the pearl and were punished for it,’ Elizabeth said. She knew Craven thought her a fool but she would never forget what it was like to look into the dark heart of the glass and see the visions she had seen. She had lost husband, eldest son, home and future. She knew how soothsaying could promise
the world and then steal it away from you. Water and fire, fire and water … Both had taken a terrible toll.

‘That is why I must go,’ she said. This time she did step away from him, as though to emphasise her words. ‘None but I can take back the knight’s treasure.’

He was shaking his head. ‘It’s madness,’ he said. ‘What if you were injured, or captured, or killed?’ He threw out a hand. ‘Send me, Majesty. I will go to Metz and retrieve the mirror.’

‘You will come with me,’ Elizabeth corrected. ‘None but you. With your protection I will neither be injured nor captured nor killed.’

She saw his jaw set hard. ‘You would trust me to keep you safe,’ he said, ‘and yet you would not trust me to retrieve the mirror for you.’

Silence fell softly, split by nothing beyond sweet birdsong.

‘Please do not tell me,’ Craven said, ‘that you believe that trinket would be a danger to me, that it might seduce me with its power.’ The sarcasm in his tone cut Elizabeth like a whetted knife. ‘Please do not tell me that you wish to spare me that peril when the truth is simply that you doubt my loyalty.’

Elizabeth did not answer at once. It would be an insult to lie. It would be an insult to admit the truth. For it was true that she did believe the mirror would be a temptation to any man, and no matter how steadfast she believed Craven’s fealty to be there was always a doubt in her mind. She knew how much magic could corrupt and the mirror’s allure was not of this world.

‘I trust you more than any man at court,’ she said truthfully.’
‘I am surrounded by spies but you—’ She paused. ‘You are the only one I believe to be wholly constant.’

He gave a half-smile, which was fair since she had given a half-answer.

‘It is impossible for you to go,’ he said, more gently this time. ‘Surely you must see that? How long before anyone misses you? Are you to fool your entire court?’

‘I had thought to pretend a putrid fever—’ she began to say, but once again he shook his head with an impatience she would have reprimanded in any other man.