Dawnlands, page 13
“Horsleydown Stairs,” Matthew told him, and the man leaned forward and pulled hard against the incoming tide.
Livia helped the queen climb the stairs from the river, and Matthew carried their bags as they walked along the quay to Reekie Wharf. The three of them had to weave around goods, crates, sacks, and barrels on the quayside, and avoid lumpers and porters.
“Is that the ship?” Livia whispered to Matthew, recognizing the little warehouse and the familiar smell of the Neckinger drain.
He glanced at the Sweet Hope riding low in the water, fully loaded. “Yes,” he said. “That’s her.”
At the front door, Matthew turned to his mother. “Please will you wait here?”
“Of course not,” she said simply. “We’ll go straight inside.”
REEKIE WHARF, LONDON, SUMMER 1685
Livia walked in as if she owned the place, ushering the queen into the front parlor and seating her in the best chair. “Tell Alys we are here,” she ordered her son. “And find Captain Shore and tell him we wish to sail on the next tide.”
Matthew flushed, bowed to the queen, and left the room. He found his foster mother in the countinghouse, seated on her high clerk’s stool, her head bowed over the books. She looked up in surprise as he came in.
“Ma,” he said shortly.
“Matthew! I didn’t hear the door.” She took in the sheen of sweat on his face and the grim look of his mouth. “What’s the matter? Here in the middle of the day? Are you sick? Are you in trouble? What is it?”
“It’s the Queen of England. She’s here, in our parlor. With the Nobildonna. I’m very sorry, Ma, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“She’s here?” she asked, aghast. But it was not clear which of the women she dreaded the most: his mother or the fugitive queen.
“They want to sail now.”
“Monmouth’s army is in London? Argyll?”
“He must be near, for them to want to get away.”
She nodded. “Send the girl for Captain Shore. He’s at Paton’s coffeehouse,” she said. “And tell Tabs to offer them wine and water.”
“Won’t you come?” he asked her. “They’re sitting in the parlor. I don’t think it should be Tabs…”
“I?”
“Please, Ma.”
“I swore I’d never see her again.”
“It’s only for a moment… Ma. And she’s rewarded me for this.”
He saw her summon her courage and square her shoulders. “Very well,” she said. “You go upstairs and tell your grandmother that the queen and the Nobildonna are here. Tell her she need not come down. Tell her they’re not staying; and I will deal with them.”
He hesitated, his hand on the door knob. “I’m so sorry, Ma,” he said.
She put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s not you. It’s her. It’s her who brings trouble to our door, and she always has done.”
She went past him into the hall, and he heard her firm step on the stone floor and then the creak of the parlor door.
“May I present Goodwife Shore,” Livia said to the queen, her voice clear and steady, not a shadow of embarrassment at seeing the woman she had loved and betrayed.
The queen inclined her head but said nothing as Alys dropped a small curtsey. Behind her, Tabs came in, carrying a flagon of red wine and a jug of water on a tray with two glasses. They clinked in the silence as she put them down on the table and slowly withdrew. When the door was closed behind her, Alys said: “I’ve sent the maid to fetch Captain Shore.”
“Thank you,” Livia said. She stepped to the table and mixed a small glass of wine and water for the queen.
Alys stared at Livia, trying to see that once-beloved face through the thick veil. As if she felt Alys’s eyes upon her, Livia tossed the veil away from her face, over the brim of her hat, and once again Alys saw the dark arched eyebrows, the smiling dark eyes, and the perfect profile of the woman she had adored.
“You will think I am much changed,” Livia said, a caressing note in her voice.
She handed the queen the glass and stepped towards Alys. “I have missed you, Alys. I did not want to leave you as I did, and it broke my heart that you would not see me when I visited Matteo. It was you I came to see, Beloved. It was you I was longing for.”
“Matthew,” Alys said curtly, resisting the enchantment of the lilting voice. “We call him Matthew.”
“I understand, you still don’t forgive me.”
They heard the back door to the yard bang and Captain Shore clattered down the stone-flagged hall. He opened the door to the parlor and recoiled at the sight of the three women, one veiled, one a great beauty, and his wife, her square face pale and her whole body as rigid as if their house were occupied by an enemy.
“What’s this?” he asked of the room, and then turned to his wife. “Girl said that I was to sail at once.”
Matthew followed him into the room. “These are the ladies who have booked berths on your voyage, sir. They have to leave today.”
“Going badly, is it?” the Captain asked cheerfully of no one. “Well, I’m agreeable. We’re fully loaded, and I pay no mooring charges at my own wharf.” He nodded to his wife but drew no answering smile from her. He was shocked by the cold bitterness in her face.
“When can we leave, Captain Shore?” Livia demanded.
“When the tide turns,” he said. “On the ebb, in four hours. I’ll send for my sailors now, they’re ready. As long as no one’s been pressed for the navy.” He turned a baleful glance on the veiled queen. “Someone should do something about the way they press good men into the king’s navy,” he said ominously.
“Not now, Abel,” his wife said quietly.
“Aye. Very well. So, shall you ladies step down to the coffeehouse and order a dinner there and come aboard this afternoon at four?”
“We can’t be seen,” Livia ruled. “And better for you, Captain, if we’re not known to be sailing with you.”
“That bad, is it?” he asked.
Livia smiled at him, her eyes warm on his weather-beaten face, as if he were their only savior and her particular friend. “Just a temporary reverse,” she said, smooth as silk. “But sir, would you be so kind as to let us dine here, in your house, and go aboard when you are ready to sail?” she asked. “It would be more comfortable, and discreet. You will be rewarded, when we come to our own again.”
“If you ever do,” he said bluntly.
He saw the warning narrowing of her eyes; but she turned to Alys. “You will let us stay here, I know,” she said. “You were always so good to me…”
Matthew saw his foster mother flush a painful red where she had been so pale. “I didn’t know what you were about then, and I don’t know now,” she said shortly.
Livia took two steps across the little room and took her hands. “Remember what we were to each other?” She lowered her voice. “I never forget. You were everything to me.”
Captain Shore kept his eyes on his wife’s face as Livia, still holding her hands, swayed slightly to her own words, as if she would dance her from her stubborn stance. Alys did not yield, but nor did she shrug off Livia’s touch. She was frozen, as if the caressing tone were a spell that the beautiful younger woman was winding around her.
“You can dine here,” the Captain interrupted. “My wife’ll tell the cook to get something for you. Plain fare, since you gave us no notice. But good enough—since you’ve no choice.” He suddenly remembered that he was speaking to the queen and he pulled off his hat and bowed again. “I’ll come and fetch you on board when we’re ready to sail, ma’am.” He remembered that he should not turn his back on her and he reversed awkwardly, bumping the table, out of the room.
Livia released Alys with a teasing little smile. “He is so kind,” she said. “I do hope you are very happy? I think you are happier in your marriage than I in mine? I am sure you do not miss me, as I miss you?”
“I’ll order your dinner,” was all Alys said, and she went out of the room.
Livia turned to the queen. “Shall you take off your veil?” she asked gently. “We are among friends. And your hat? Would you like to lie down before dinner? I can show you to a bedroom?”
The queen made a little gesture, and Livia stood behind her, untied the ribbons of her hat and lifted it and the veil away. Matthew stood by the door, waiting to be dismissed, but his mother passed the hat to him and then stepped towards him to whisper: “She’s given us the manor of Foulmire! I have the deeds in my sleeve. I’ll give them to you, here and now!”
With a rustle of silk she pulled them from her loose sleeve and unrolled them on the dining table and showed him where his name followed the royal seal, and before that was the earlier owner, Sir William Peachey.
“How lucky it is that the name is ours!” she exclaimed. “Peachey—so you will be Matteo da Picci of Foulmire Manor, but you shall spell it the English way, Matthew Peachey, and everyone will think that we have owned it forever. And when this is all over and the queen comes to her own again you shall be knighted and then you can be Sir Matthew like Sir William our ancestor.”
“He wasn’t our ancestor,” he pointed out. “We cannot claim another man’s name and family.”
“Oh, who knows? And who will ever care? When kings are coming and going, who is going to mind a mere Italian widow changing her son’s name? And everyone is a son of God, after all! As soon as we set sail, you must go there at once, move in, move the old lady in too, that was a good idea of yours. Do everything to make it look as if you have owned it for years, and if we are in exile for a while, for months even, then you at least will have your estate, and I will have somewhere to come home to.”
“If Monmouth comes…” he said very quietly, one eye on the queen, who had leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
“If he comes from the west and Argyll from the north, then you certainly should be in your manor in the south of England, and far from London,” she insisted. “Take the old lady. Take Alys.”
“Sir James doesn’t go with you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive. He will have fought Argyll as he marched through Yorkshire, for sure. I’ve heard nothing from him. He said he would send his carriage for me, but it hasn’t come. If you meet with him, tell him that I was beside myself with grief and not knowing what he would want me to do. When his carriage failed me, I had to get away by sea.”
“But Lady Mother—you always planned to go by sea…”
She put her silk-mittened hand over his mouth and he felt the warmth of her fingers like a kiss.
“It doesn’t matter,” she told him softly.
BRIDGWATER, SOMERSET, SUMMER 1685
Ned, with Rowan at his side, marched his troop into Bridgwater between cheering crowds, people thrusting bread and whole hams and cheeses into the soldiers’ hands as they went to their camp in Castlefield. The Somerset militia, armed and mustered to attack them, surged into the rebel camp, throwing their arms around men with the sprig of green in their hats, swearing that they too were for liberty, and were welcomed by the duke himself.
“This is a strange war,” Rowan observed to Ned. “All dances and no fighting.”
“We’ve not yet met any who’ll stand against us,” he said. “But the king’s regular troops must find us, sooner or later.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve a mind to go down to the port and see if there’s a coaster going to London that’d take you to Alinor.”
“No.”
“Better now, than we get taken by surprise.”
“Not today! I don’t have to go today!”
He pulled her down to sit on his cape beside him. “I won’t be harsh with you, Rowan, but I can’t keep you with me. Sooner or later there’ll be a battle, and you should be in safety.”
She bit her lip. “I’m safe with you.”
“Not if we come under fire. I couldn’t protect you, and besides, I should be thinking of my troop.”
“But who will get your food, if not me?”
“I’ll survive.”
“Sannup,” she whispered. “Don’t make me leave you.”
“Ah, for the Lord’s sake, girl! Don’t call me that!”
“Don’t you call me ‘girl,’ ” she said resentfully, rubbing her face dry.
He choked on his laugh. “What then? Young lady?”
“I am not your girl or your young lady,” she said angrily.
“I know well enough you’re not mine,” he said, his voice very low. “I know that well enough. And that’s why you should go away. That’s why I am trying to send you away.”
“If I were your wife, could I stay with you?”
Ned folded his mouth on the sudden pounding of his heart. After a few moments he spoke very quietly. “I’m old enough to be your father. And I bought you to set you free, not to mew you up in marriage with an old man.”
For one long moment of silence he thought she might contradict him; but she did not. “If you order me, I will go,” she said unhappily.
“Very well then,” he said. “It’s an order. You’ll have to go.”
REEKIE WHARF, LONDON, SUMMER 1685
Captain Shore jogged in his seaboots from the coffeehouse to the wharf, where the Sweet Hope’s crew were stowing their own goods and rigging the sails ready for their departure. He went in the backyard gate and into the kitchen. “Where’s the missis?” he demanded.
“Sitting upstairs with Mrs. Reekie,” Tabs told him. “Those passengers are still in the parlor.”
“I have to speak with her. I’ll go up,” he said. “Tell Susie to send Matthew up too.”
Consumed with curiosity, Tabs watched him climb the wooden stairs from the narrow hall. “Go on,” she said irritably to the maid. “Go and find Master Matthew. He’s standing out front looking at the quay as if he was a soldier on guard. Lord alone knows what’s going on and what that Italian woman is doing here again. I thought we’d seen the back of her and her tricksy ways.”
Captain Shore tapped on Alinor’s bedroom door and went into the room. His wife and her mother were seated on either side of the table by the glazed balcony, both of them sewing tea bags for herbal tea as if today were the most ordinary of days. As soon as he saw them, busy as they always were, quiet as they always were, he felt his own alarm subside.
“There you are, God bless you,” he said.
“What’s happened now?” Alys demanded.
Alinor gave him her steady smile, and he waited for Matthew to come up the stairs and into the room before he replied. “It’s good news for the ladies. I was in the coffeehouse settling my slate before sailing, and Jim McDonald came in—he’s a Scots trader—full of news. Said that the Earl of Argyll is run away and disappeared somewhere. He says the rebellion is all over for Argyll.”
Alinor looked towards the young man. “You’d better tell your mother at once,” she said. “It may make a difference to their plans.”
“I’d be glad not to be the man that ships them out,” Captain Shore confessed.
“Go with Matthew,” Alinor suggested. “Tell Her Majesty directly, just as you told us.”
“Shouldn’t the Nobildonna speak?” Captain Shore hesitated. “She’s the lady-in-waiting?”
“No, you tell her, Abel,” Alinor insisted.
“Why, Ma?” Alys asked.
“So that the queen knows everything that we know.”
“Because the Nobildonna might not say…?”
“Who knows what she is doing? Who knows what she would say?”
“You’re certain?” Matthew asked. “The man could not be mistaken?”
“Course he could be!” Captain Shore said impatiently. “But they can send to the palace, can’t they? To be certain? Surely the king has spies and messengers of his own?”
Matthew nodded and clattered down the stairs to the parlor, followed at a more sober pace by Alys and her husband. Matthew tapped on the parlor door and entered, while Alys waited on the threshold, her husband behind her.
The queen was seated in her chair, leaning back with her eyes closed; Livia was at the window, looking out at the ship that would take them to safety. She turned with a little smile. “Is it time?”
Matthew bowed. “Captain Shore has some news from the coffeehouse,” he said. “I believe he should tell you himself.”
“Her Majesty is resting,” Livia whispered. “I’ll come outside.”
Alys did not yield; as Livia came towards her, she deliberately blocked the doorway. “Better that she hear this for herself.”
Livia glanced back at the queen, who opened her eyes and gestured that Captain Shore should come in. “Leave this to me, Your Majesty,” she said.
Alys stepped into the room, as if she had no fear of Livia and no deference to the queen. “I think you’d better hear for yourself, ma’am.”
Livia laughed in her grave face. “Allora!” she said mockingly. “Are you a royal herald now?”
Alys did not even look at her, and Livia fell back to stand behind the queen.
Captain Shore bowed, and told them the news from the coffeehouse.
“Just gossip,” Livia dismissed it.
“Could be true,” Alys warned.
“We shouldn’t miss the tide.”
“You’ve got an hour before it turns,” the Captain pointed out.
“Why don’t you send a message to the palace to find out?” Alys asked the queen directly.
“Please leave this to me.” Livia stepped in front of the queen and leaned over her, blocking the others from her view. “What do you want to do, dearest? Shall we take ship, now we have got so far? Don’t you want to go to your mama?”
The queen sat up and gently put Livia to one side with a small gesture of her hand. She spoke directly to Captain Shore. “Is the man who told you a trustworthy man?”
He shrugged. “He’s got no reason to lie, ma’am.”
“Will you wait until I can get news?”
