The Best of Men (85 page)

“Ay,” cried Juana, “you are hurting!”

Antonio tightened his grip. “What did you see in me today?”

“I saw Monsieur. You would be his image if he was older.”

“How old was he?”

“Five and twenty, or a little more – I couldn’t say. You
gaje
are different from us. Why, who is he to you?”

Antonio’s head was spinning as though he had drunk a whole cask of Malaga. “You’re to go back into the city, Juana, to an inn, El Caballo Blanco, near the church of San Pedro. Tell Gaspar Jimenez that Don Antonio de Zamora wants you to stay there.”

“When will you come to me?” she asked warily.

“When I choose,” he said. “And if I don’t find you, I swear by the devil, I’ll hunt you down. You can watch your child die first, before you meet your Maker.”

K
ing Charles was hunting stag in the royal forest, with his party of lords and gentlemen, and a pack of eager hounds. They had disappeared from view into a thick mist that drifted through the trees. Like smoke on a battlefield, Laurence thought, as he reined in to wipe sweat from his eyes. He did not enjoy the chase.

“Your Highness, you must be more careful,” he warned the young Prince, who had pulled up impatiently at his side; the boy was riding too fast, and his horse had already stumbled once on a tree root.

“If we don’t hurry, Mr. Beaumont, we may lose them,” Prince Charles shouted. “I want to watch the kill.” Before Laurence could stop him, the boy put spurs to his mount and galloped ahead, vanishing among the trees.

Laurence became aware of an extraordinary silence. No birdsong or soughing of branches above, no rustle of animals in the bushes. He was alone. Then Sir Bernard Radcliff emerged out of the mist and walked towards him. Laurence felt astonished: he had last seen Radcliff in the grounds of the Earl of Pembroke’s London house, dying from a multitude of wounds inflicted by the Earl’s guards.

“I understand your surprise,” remarked Radcliff, with a superior smile. “But don’t forget, your precious tutor Dr. Seward instructed me in magic, as well as in the casting of horoscopes. The dead can be revived, sir, if one knows the proper rituals.”

“You were wrong about the King’s death,” said Laurence, his voice sounding puny as a child’s in the vastness of the forest. “It wasn’t to happen when you predicted.”

“It will happen soon, nonetheless.”

Radcliff’s smile faded as spectacularly as he did, dwindling to a wisp of fog; and now Laurence discovered himself in a small clearing where the King’s body was laid out upon a makeshift bier of bracken and dry leaves. Pembroke stood over the bier, like an old vulture in his sombre cloak, leaning on a cane. Nearby were his guards with Prince Charles, who was kneeling, white-faced, wrists and ankles tied, a rope around his neck.

Pembroke turned a bleak stare on Laurence, and shook his head in reproof. “I had planned that he would reign under my authority, after his father’s tragic accident. Alas, he watched the kill. That was your mistake, Mr. Beaumont. You ought to have kept him by your side.”

Trembling, Laurence drew his pistol from the holster of his saddle. “You’ll never get away with the murder of two kings.” He fired. The shot ricocheted off Pembroke’s cloak, as if he were wearing steel. Laurence gaped in terror as the speeding ball changed course, and plunged into the Prince’s breast.

Laurence jolted awake and tasted blood in his mouth. Exploring with his tongue, he identified the source: he had bitten into the tender flesh inside his lower lip. Dawn was breaking, and he could hear the Oxford bells chime seven.

Isabella slept on next to him, one shapely arm flung over the counterpane, her peaceful expression a contrast to his unquiet mind. He longed to rouse her and tell her about the nightmare and what had inspired it: how through the initial year of this civil war he had helped thwart a conspiracy to kill the King. It frustrated him that the criminal designs of Pembroke and Radcliff had to remain a strictly guarded secret: in Radcliff’s case, to protect his widow; and in Pembroke’s, because the King had chosen not to expose his former friend as a traitor. Yet what troubled Laurence far more was that in the domain of politics and intrigue he could not be open with the woman he loved. Isabella was still close to the man who had once been her guardian, the
new Secretary of State, Lord George Digby, whom Laurence trusted no further than he could spit.

He sank back and nestled against her, inhaling the scent on her naked skin: attar of roses, orris root, musk, and frankincense; and a more animal trace, from their passion of the night before. Yesterday he had asked her a second time to marry him, and she had refused. “Must we fight everyone?” she had said. “That is what our marriage would entail.” He was prepared to fight. But was she?

“I opened Pandora’s box, and evil flew out,” Seward muttered, as he hurried along Merton Street. He could imagine what Beaumont would say: that he should not have upset himself by gazing again into the King’s future.

Passing Oriel College, he turned north, and threaded his way up to Broad Street, into St. Giles. As if in defiance of the war, Oxford was stirring to its usual business: traders were setting up their stalls, servants emptied slop buckets into the gutters, drovers plodded behind sheep and cattle, and carts rolled in loaded with hay from the countryside. Near the Church of St. Mary Magdalen, Seward’s path was blocked by a troop of laughing soldiers headed for their billets after night patrol on the city defences. He waited impatiently for them to go by, then carried on at a frantic pace up the Woodstock Road, dived into a side street, and arrived breathless at Mistress Savage’s house.

The door stood wide, and a young maidservant was sweeping the threshold. She stopped when she saw him, her broom in mid-air. “I am Doctor William Seward, of Merton College,” he panted. “I have urgent news for Mr. Beaumont.”

“Please sit in the parlour, sir,” she said, “and I’ll wake him.”

Seward fell into a chair, and mopped his brow with a corner of his cloak. A few minutes later, Beaumont ran down the stairs, his pale green eyes anxious and his inky hair tangled from sleep. He wore just his breeches, which hung dangerously low. Even agitated, Seward could
not keep his own eyes from lingering on that smooth, olive-toned body, so youthful despite its many scars.

“What’s wrong, my friend – are you ill?” Beaumont asked, crouching beside him and laying a hand on his thigh.

“No, Beaumont,” Seward said. “I have been working through the night.”

“It’s too much for you, at your age. What’s your urgent news?”

“I was working on … a horoscope.”

“A royal horoscope? Oh Seward, I thought we were finished with all that.”

“I could not rest until I had drawn His Majesty’s chart again, now I had the true hour of his birth,” Seward whispered. “I
had
to learn how far Radcliff had erred in calculating the date of his decease with the incorrect hour.”

Beaumont rose and took the chair opposite, propping his elbows on his knees. He cupped his chin in his hands and squinted at Seward through his lashes, as he had been wont to do as a gangly boy of fifteen when concentrating on his lessons. At one and thirty, he was lean-muscled and broad-shouldered, and more graceful, yet his movements had not lost their impulsiveness; nor had his character. “What did you find out?”

“By my reckoning, His Majesty has about six more years to live. Not even six; to be exact, five years and a little over three months – and he will die on the thirtieth of January.”

“Then you needn’t have been in quite such haste to tell me,” Beaumont said, with a slight smile.

“Radcliff did not err, as to the circumstances: the King
will
perish by violence.”

“Is that so surprising? We
are
in the midst of a war, though I pray to God it doesn’t last five more years.”

“If I have read his stars correctly, it is a war he might lose, together with his life.”

“Will you alert him?”

“You know very well it would be high treason to predict his death.”

Beaumont hesitated. “Last night I dreamt of him dead, perhaps as you were at work on your calculations.”

While he recounted the dream, Seward listened intently. “It is a clear warning to you, about the future,” he said, at the end.

“No, Seward: though I admit I was disturbed by it, I see it as a mess of my past worries and complete nonsense.” Beaumont began to laugh. “Still, Radcliff resurrected gave me a bit of a scare. And I had to envy Pembroke his armoured cloak.”

“Don’t be flippant. It is telling you that while you may not be pleased to serve Lord Digby, you must serve him as you served Lord Falkland, may God rest his soul, if you are to protect the lives of your King and Prince Charles.”

Beaumont relaxed back, and crossed his long legs. “How are things at Merton these days, with the Queen in residence?”

Seward snorted. “Now you are being evasive.”

“What would you prefer me to say? I am
not
pleased to be in Digby’s service. I’d rather have stayed in Wilmot’s Lifeguard.”

“Your talents would be wasted in the ranks. Besides, Lord Wilmot is an arrogant, immoderate fellow.”

“Minor flaws, compared to those of certain others in His Majesty’s camp,” Beaumont said, shrugging. “And he’s also the King’s Lieutenant General of Horse and one of our best commanders. Most important to me, he was a true friend when Falkland died.”

“He kept you drunk.”

“Yes, for which I’m eternally in his debt,” retorted Beaumont, with a heartfelt emotion that made Seward a little sheepish.

“I understand how stricken you were by Falkland’s demise. And I know you do not have a great respect for Lord Digby,” Seward added, more quietly.

“You’re wrong there,” said Beaumont, not bothering to lower his voice. “I have the greatest respect – for his guile and utter lack of scruple. Without those qualities of character, he’d never have obliged me
to work for him. In my view, his appointment will be disastrous for the royal cause, and I dread to think what sort of cunning schemes he’ll suggest to the King, now he has more power in His Majesty’s Council. I’ll be his spy as I was Falkland’s, out of duty to the King and the Prince, but I won’t pretend I like it.”

“As I did once observe to you, Doctor,” remarked a husky drawl from the stairs, “if only Beaumont were not so useful.”

Isabella Savage unnerved Seward on most occasions. This morning as she came towards him he could hardly look at her. Her satin robe clung to the curves of her body, her dark coppery hair flowed loose, and her feet were bare. “Madam,” he said, getting up to bow, “excuse my early visit.”

“It’s a pleasure to receive you.” She strolled over to Beaumont and caressed his cheek with her fingertips. “I trust you were not among the scholars evicted from your chambers upon Her Majesty’s installation at the College?” she asked, as Beaumont slipped an arm around her waist.

Seward felt his cheeks redden. The heat between them was always palpable, yet today it seemed to him almost a physical presence, as though living in sin under her roof had intensified their sensual bliss. “No, madam: age has its privileges.”

“Indeed it should. To quote the wise Cicero, it is a burden as heavy as Aetna.”

Seward did not respond. Beautiful women were dangerous enough without an education; but that Mistress Savage should dip her nose into the classical authors and then flaunt her learning struck him as the height of immodesty, no less offensive to him than her déshabille.

“And to quote my father, Seward is a veritable jewel in Merton’s crown,” Beaumont told her, drawing her closer and leaning his head against her hip.

Seward rose, now thoroughly unsettled. “I should leave you in peace.”

Beaumont gave one of his wicked smiles, flashing his white teeth. “Small chance of any peace: my mother is in town, determined to
arrange another betrothal for me. You might encounter her at the College. She’s lodged near to the Queen.”

“She called on us yesterday, Doctor,” Mistress Savage said. “How Beaumont takes after her – even in that flare to her nostrils.”

“Much as his brother Thomas resembles his lordship their father as a young man,” said Seward, wondering what had transpired at the meeting between these formidable females.

“I must visit her around midday,” said Beaumont. “If you’re not busy or sleeping, Seward, I could pass by your rooms.”

“Please do.”

Beaumont sprang to his feet; someone was rapping at the door. “Dear me, I hope that’s not her,” he exclaimed, with a comical frown at Mistress Savage.

He went and opened to a man in the Secretary of State’s livery; Seward thought he had the air of a weasel. “Good morning, Mr. Beaumont,” he said, studying Mistress Savage with salacious interest. “His lordship requests that you attend him immediately at his offices.”

“Would you remind me of your name, sir?” asked Beaumont.

“Quayle, sir.”

“Mr. Quayle, pray inform his lordship that I’ll attend him as soon as I’m more decently dressed.”

“I can wait for you, sir.”

Seward took the opportunity to leave. “Until later, Beaumont. Good day, Mistress Savage.”

On his way down the street, he heard a door slam shut. He glanced over his shoulder to see Quayle snooping through her front window.

Lord Digby sat at Falkland’s old desk, his round visage freshly shaved and his blond hair impeccably curled. He was still in his dressing gown, a quilted garment of scarlet satin, and on his head was a lace cap. To Laurence, he resembled some sleek Flemish cardinal in his Vatican chambers.

“How are you, Mr. Beaumont, and how is our darling Isabella?”

“We’re well, thank you, my lord.”

He surveyed Laurence keenly with his protuberant blue eyes. “Have you broken your fast yet?”

“No, my lord,” replied Laurence. “I was in too much of a rush to obey your summons.”

“That is lucky for you: what I have to show you might otherwise upset your digestion, as it did mine.”