The Best of Men (88 page)

Isabella came to the door herself. “Lucy is out visiting,” she said. “She promised to return by the hour of curfew. Though she persists in denying it, I think she has a lover somewhere. What do you think, Beaumont?”

Laurence recognised Isabella’s brittle tone; and he could guess the cause of it. “I think you have something else to ask me,” he said, trying to embrace her.

She ducked aside and went to sit in her chair, next to the window that gave onto the garden where they had spent many afternoons conversing and playing chess. “How was your first day in his lordship’s service?”

“Shorter than I’d expected. He introduced me to a Mr. Violet. I’m to work with Violet, but I didn’t much like him.”

“I know Violet – he’s an unctuous man. And … did you find her ladyship your mother at College?”

“Yes, and I told her of my proposal to you.”

“You did not have to. What did she say?”

“
Exactly
what I expected.” Laurence knelt at Isabella’s slippered feet, pulled the book out of his doublet pocket, and placed it on her lap.

“Is this a gift?” He nodded. She opened it to the flyleaf, and her face melted into a smile. “Thank you, Beaumont.”

“Would you read for me?”

“You may disapprove of my pronunciation. I didn’t have the benefit of a tutor such as Dr. Seward when I was learning my Latin. Where should I begin?”

“At a random page.”

“Let me see …” She leafed through the book, and her eyes danced at him. “I shall start here. ‘
If you listen to my advice, you will not be in too great a hurry to attain the limits of your pleasure.’”

“Your pronunciation is perfect,” he said. “Don’t stop.”

“
‘Learn, by skilful dallying, to reach the goal by gentle, pleasant stages. When you have found the sanctuary of bliss, let no foolish modesty arrest your hand
 …’” And as she read on, he slid his hands up, gradually, beneath her skirts, to that sanctuary.

“I am selfishly glad Beaumont accepted Her Majesty’s supper invitation,” Digby said to Isabella, as Quayle brought them a water bowl and napkins to cleanse their fingers after the meal. She was particularly gorgeous tonight, in her bronze silk gown and her favourite necklace of enamelled rock crystal and amethysts; and he could imagine the source of her languid, dreamy air.

“I was not about to go with him, Digby,” she said.

“Oh I’m sure the Queen wouldn’t care that you and he are living together without the Church’s blessing, but I daresay His Majesty would object. How different he is to his father, whose Court was as licentious as a Bankside brothel. So, my dear, how did you spend the afternoon?”

“I was reading Ovid’s
Ars Amatoria
.”

“Hmm – as I recall, a disquisition on love, two-thirds of it advice for men, and a third for women. What was said of Ovid … That he would have been a better poet had he controlled his genius instead of permitting it to control him. Could that apply to our Mr. Beaumont?”

“No more than to you.”

“
Touché
!” giggled Digby, tossing aside his napkin. “Have you read the sequel,
Remedia Amoris
? It contains the most excellent advice for those who would be cured of their love.”

“Why should I wish to be cured?”

Digby felt a pang of sorrow for her. “Isabella, have you told him about your youthful mishap and its attendant consequences?”

“He knows everything about it.”

“Still, as heir to that fine Cotswold estate he will want children. You said to me that your face and your body have been
your
fortune, but that they could not last forever. As Ovid says, time is the devourer of all things. What will happen then?”

“If you are eager to learn, persuade his friend Dr. Seward to cast my horoscope.”

“You must get bored, in that house,” Digby said, after a silence. “Were you not supping with me, you would be twiddling your thumbs waiting for him to come home to you, like a good little wife. Except that you are not good, Isabella, and you are not married to him. Do you not crave the thrills of your former life, when you and I worked together? It was I who sent you to seduce Beaumont, if you remember.”

“Do you regret it?” she asked, as though challenging him.

“Regret is a pointless emotion. It is more profitable to look forwards than to look back.”

Isabella laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “Digby, you
are
a man of the future.”

“Yes,” said Digby, pleased by her observation, “I believe I am.”

For three days, Antonio had stayed away from El Caballo Blanco. He knew from Gaspar that Juana and the boy were ensconced there, in a back room, and his mind was now busy conceiving of an excuse to his wife, not for a visit to Juana but for a voyage to England. Divine Providence had engineered the events of St. Francis’s Feast Day; and the reawakening of a family tie could solve the problem of his depleted finances. Yet above all, it would appease a hunger for revenge that had gnawed at him for years.

Straight after dispatching the gypsy to Gaspar’s, he had written to a retired fellow officer, Don Miguel de Perez, whose sons Sebastián and Santiago held positions at Court in Madrid. Antonio had asked for news of the war between King Charles of England and his Parliament.
Don Miguel’s reply arrived the next day, verbose and crammed with important names; the old windbag was basking in the reflected glory of his progeny.

Antonio read no further. He would never forget John Digby’s appointment to the Spanish Court, in 1611. That same year, James Beaumont had come to Seville.

“The bitch has a sailor’s tongue and a violent temper,” Gaspar grumbled, pocketing the money Antonio had given him. “She fought like a devil when we forced her to wash. I had to burn her rags – they were crawling with lice. Were I you, Don Antonio, I’d screw her cunt to my satisfaction, and boot her out.”

“As long as I pay you, she stays,” Antonio said.

He found Juana sitting on a pallet cradling the boy, who was suckling at her breast while she tore into a leg of roast chicken with her strong white teeth. Clean, in a decent gown, her hair combed to a shine, she excited Antonio even more; and her boy had an angel’s countenance.
And my eyes
, Antonio said to himself.

“Don Antonio,” she said, in her gypsy whine, “how can I thank you for your charity?”

“You can tell me about Monsieur.”

“He’s of your blood, isn’t he,” she asserted, in her normal voice.

Antonio lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of her hair. “No
questions,
mi gitana –
I want answers. How did you two meet, so far from home?”

She winced, dropping her chicken leg. “My people had followed the Spanish troops north. Our camp was attacked, and they were all slaughtered except for me. The countryside wasn’t safe, so I went to The Hague.”

Antonio let go of her hair. “And then?”

“I was begging near a brothel – the custom was mostly rich folk who might have pity on a poor starving gypsy. But when I asked a man for a coin, he started to beat me. Monsieur heard my shrieks.”

“He was in the brothel?”

“Yes. He and the Jew who owned the brothel fought with the man, and sent him packing. Monsieur had the Jew shelter me, afterwards – it was bitter cold, that winter.”

“How very charitable of
him
,” Antonio commented, his eyes on her smooth young breast. “So, he was one of the Jew’s customers.”

She unlatched the child, and pulled up the front of her gown. “No, he wasn’t. The Jew ran gaming tables, and Monsieur was his cardsharp. They were good friends and had made a pile of money together. Monsieur had a special gift with cards.”

“What sort of gift?”

“He could remember them in his head, however many rounds were played. And he was a clever cheat.”

“What did he tell you of his father and mother?”

“That crone at your table – didn’t she speak of an English lord?
His
father was a lord. Monsieur wouldn’t talk much about him. Whenever he did, he’d look as if he might weep. He talked even less about his mother, just what I said: she was a noble lady from this city.” Juana paused, eyeing Antonio. “I don’t know how he was raised, there in England, but if he was my son I’d have taught him better. He was the whores’ whore, at the brothel. That’s what I called him, for pleasuring them in their off hours. He had no pride.”

“I thought he was a soldier.”

“He had been, but he’d deserted. He had taken a musket ball here.” She stabbed a greasy finger at her right side, below her ribs. “He’d lost the guts to face fire.” Antonio hid disgust: a cardsharp, friends with a Jew, and a coward! “That was why we fled The Hague,” she rattled on, regaining her confidence. “The army would be looking to hang him when it turned to spring, and I had to get back to my people. And others were after him, like the man who’d beaten me. He’d wounded Monsieur when they fought, but that wasn’t enough for him: he wanted Monsieur dead. If Monsieur’s still alive, he’ll have the scar – from a broken bottle.” With the same finger, she traced a line from her left thumb up along her forearm. “And he’ll have a mark here …” She tapped the outside of her lower lip. “From a stiletto. Monsieur deserved
that
one – he’d been cuckolding the fellow.”

“And when did Monsieur have
you
, Juana?”

Histrionic outrage crossed her face. “Not ’til he’d chased me through France and into Spain. He was mad for me, and when at last he caught up with me, he raped me, over and over.”

“Until he learnt about the child.”

“Yes,” she said, primly.

“You are full of shit, my girl,” Antonio said. “If he was mad for you, he would have raped you before you fled The Hague. But you might be telling the truth about why he cast you off. Why would he care to be saddled with your spawn, or with you, if you became a nuisance to him.”

Antonio was gratified to see the confidence drain out of her. She hugged the child to her breast. “What more do
you
want of me?”

“You are to stay here, and behave yourself. I am leaving town for a while.”

“Why must we stay?”

“Because I say so.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“You ask too many questions. And don’t you dare dream of running, or you know what will happen.” He examined her for a moment,
tempted. Then he decided to wait, like Monsieur; often a pleasure delayed tasted sweeter.

Back home, Antonio dug out from a coffer in his bedchamber the leather coat he had worn through many of his campaigns; the bloodstains had faded to rust. He slipped it on and surveyed his lean, broad-shouldered figure in the glass. He had a head of thick, distinguished salt-and-pepper hair, most of his teeth, and few aches apart from a throb in his right calf from an old rapier wound. Not bad, for a man of fifty-three.

He was still admiring himself when Teresa walked in. “Don Antonio, why are you dressed in that coat?”

“My dear, I had meant to inform you at supper tonight: I must embark on a voyage, to England.”

“
England?
” she repeated, as though it were an alien planet.

“Today I received a letter from the Earl of Bristol, a dear friend of my late maternal aunt, Elena de Capdavila y Fuentes. He was English ambassador to our Court, when I was in my twenties.”

“Why should he write, after all these years?”

“I was as puzzled myself, yet my aunt had always recommended me to him,” Antonio bluffed, “which brings me to the content of his letter. Our sovereign King Philip has graciously agreed upon a loan to Charles of England, to aid him in crushing a rebellion that has broken out in his kingdom. Bristol wishes to entrust me with the task of delivering the funds. It may involve some danger, but the reward is impossible to refuse.” Antonio named a fabulous sum. “I am to ride for Madrid tomorrow to collect the loan. A royal guard will escort me overland, to set sail from the port of La Coruña.”

Teresa did not speak; and he held his breath. Then she clasped her hands together, tears spilling from her eyes. “Oh, Don Antonio, we are saved! God has finally listened to my prayers.”

“And mine,” said Antonio, exhaling a long sigh of relief.

“And it is such an honour, that you should serve two Royal Majesties.” She dashed away her tears, and with the staggering practicality
of women carried on, “You will have to order a suit of warm clothes, and woollen undergarments and hose, the instant you arrive in Madrid. The English climate is reputed to be horrid: nothing but fog and rain and snow. And why not take Diego Sandoval with you? Agustín is too elderly and frail to travel as your valet, but Diego would do well in his place. According to Agustín, he already speaks English. And he would jump at the chance to leave Seville.”

“So he would,” agreed Antonio; Diego was his valet’s nephew, a scholarly youth whose library of forbidden books had attracted the ire of King Philip’s Inquisition. “You are not just beautiful,
mi querida
– you are a fount of knowledge and wisdom,” he praised his wife, glad that her knowledge did not extend to politics: as if the King of Spain’s coffers were not as empty as his own, and the country not ruined by its war with France. “I’ll talk to Agustín. Diego and I will have a lengthy voyage before us. Plenty of time for him to teach me English.”

Laurence rode through the night, stopping now and again in the small hours of morning to rest his horse. He trotted it into the village of Chelsea around four o’clock the next day; rather better than Violet’s estimation, though he attributed his swift, uneventful journey as much to the stallion’s endurance as to the sway of Prince Rupert’s and Wilmot’s cavalry over the countryside. The commanders were conducting regular patrols in the vicinity, mainly to obtain supplies, but also to harass any Parliament troops unfortunate enough to cross their path.