Dawnlands, page 47
“I never said so. Felipe thought he was the father, but so did you. I am the only one who knows for sure. But I am saying to you now, on the very day of your daughter’s betrothal, that Matteo is her half brother. Obviously, you cannot let them be married. Obviously, you will do anything to prevent it.”
She gave him a moment to think of it. “But you have no power: you will not shame yourself and embarrass your wife—I should think it would kill her—and slander me. Your daughter will be heartbroken, your father-in-law will threaten you, it may be that Matteo will sue Hester for breach of promise, and the Alderman’s lawyers for acting in bad faith.” She shrugged negligently. “I really don’t know. I have not thought of all the bad consequences. There is no need to think of them because they will not happen.”
He was watching her as if fascinated. “Did you plan this from the beginning?”
She laughed at him. “Don’t be so ridiculous! How could I have known nearly twenty years ago that the one thing I need, a newborn baby, would be the one thing you can easily provide?”
“How will you stop the betrothal?”
“I will tell the Alderman that you are Matteo’s father, and withdraw Matteo from the betrothal. And I will order Matteo to ask Hester that she release him.”
He flushed. “Will you tell him I am his father?”
She shook her head. “It’s not necessary. He will do as I say without my confiding in him.” She looked thoughtful. “I think it better—don’t you?—that we don’t trouble our children with old difficulties?”
“You swear you will not double-cross me?” he demanded.
She sighed. “I? Swear? What guarantee would that be for you?”
“Then how can I trust you will separate them forever?”
“Because by putting a changeling in the royal cradle, I am taking the greatest risk in the world. I am putting my neck in your hands.”
“My neck too, if I provide the baby.”
She gleamed at him. “And there you have your guarantee! Neither of us can cheat the other.”
He shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t know how you can live with yourself,” he said quietly. “You’re not like a true woman, you’re like the worst of men.”
She laughed out loud at that. “How would you know a true woman? You, who went from being my slave, to marrying a woman with laudanum in her veins?”
She thought he would flare up in a rage, but he slouched as if he was beaten. “I’ll get the baby,” he said. “God knows, there are enough unwanted babies. I’ll bring him to St. James’s Palace and give him to you. We will agree that I don’t know what you want him for, and we will never speak of this again. You will tell the Alderman that you have counted your courses and now you see that Matthew could be my son, and that you must withdraw him from the betrothal. And you will tell Matthew some lie—any lie that you like, as long as it does not name me. You will never again claim me as your husband nor as Matthew’s father.”
She pulled on her gloves, like a woman whose business is done.
“Agreed,” she said simply. “I will send a letter to the Alderman tonight, I tell Matteo as we go to St. James’s. You will bring a baby the moment that I give you the word.”
“When is she due?” he asked. “If it is to pass as a newborn…”
“Next month,” she said. “But I expect him to come early. So be a good doctor and watch carefully over your patients. We’ll need a newborn very soon.”
ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1688
Mary Beatrice, sleeping fitfully from dawn, sent for Livia at six in the morning, and when she came into the queen’s bedchamber she found her friend alone, looking like a lonely child, in the huge royal bed.
“Are you well?” she asked. “My dear? Where is your maid?”
“I feel strange,” the queen said, her voice a thread. “It’s too early, isn’t it too early?”
“It’s very early morning,” Livia said. “Lie down and I’ll send for a hot chocolate for you, or some mulled ale. Try to sleep.”
Obediently, the queen lay back on her pillows, but when Livia came back with a cup of hot chocolate, she sat up again. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I feel strange.”
She pulled back the rich covers of the bed and slid to the ground. Livia saw how her belly was standing out taut under the nightgown.
“My back aches,” Mary Beatrice said.
“Then lie down, lie down, I will rub it…”
“I can’t settle,” she said and took a few steps to the fireplace. “Get someone to make the fire up,” she said. “And open the window. It’s so fusty in here.”
“I’ll get someone to bring firewood,” Livia said. She went quickly from the room to her own apartments. Her page boy was there. She gave him a note for Dr. Reekie and told him not to wait for a reply. There would be no reply. Then she hurried back to the royal bedchamber.
The queen was prowling around the room. But suddenly, she stopped, put a hand on her belly, and cried out.
“Was that a pain?”
“Lord! Yes. A great pain.”
Livia glanced at the clock, noted the time.
“Is it starting?” the queen asked her.
Livia spread her hands and gave a pretty laugh. “My dear, I’ve only had one child and that so long ago, I can hardly remember. Shall I send for the midwife?”
“Yes, send for her, and I’d like something to eat.”
“Some pastries? Some little cakes?”
She shook her head. “New-baked bread, hot from the oven,” she said. “The kitchens should be baking bread for breakfast, get me some.” She thought for a moment. “And cheeses,” she said. “And some meats.”
“You are hungry?” Livia opened the door and sent the guard running for the maids.
“I am starving!” the queen exclaimed. She prowled about the room for a moment then she suddenly stopped and put a hand to her belly. “Ohhhh,” she gave a great groan. “That was like the world turned.”
Livia looked at the clock: it was less than an hour since the last pain. “I think it may be starting,” she said.
“Send someone to tell the king. The king has to send for the witnesses.”
“And we must dress you.” Livia went to the cupboard and got out the queen’s best nightgown, ruffled with white lace, and an embroidered robe and a fur stole. “And I’ll send for the girl to comb out your hair.”
The women of the bedchamber arrived, and Livia dropped into a curtsey as the king entered.
“Princess Anne is still at Bath,” he fretted.
“She should be here,” Mary Beatrice said, turning to him.
“I know. We all thought you had another month. I pray it’s not coming too early.”
“Amen!” Mary Beatrice crossed herself.
“And the Archbishop of Canterbury? Is he here?” She stopped, and flushed at her mistake.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was in the Tower of London, imprisoned by the king, for refusing to order the king’s speech to be read from every pulpit. Seven bishops were imprisoned with him; the king was openly at war with the church at the very moment that he needed their blessing on his son and heir.
“Oh, I suppose he doesn’t matter,” she said. “As long as our priests are here.”
Father Petre entered the room and stood beside the king, so close that their shoulders brushed. “I have notified the rest of the Privy Council,” he whispered. “Are we not too early?”
“Hold my hand,” Mary Beatrice demanded, as James stepped awkwardly closer to the bed. “Hold me in your arms.”
“You keep back,” Livia hissed to Father Petre. “You know what they’re saying about you.”
As the morning wore on and more and more people arrived to serve as witnesses, it became clear to everyone that the queen was in labor; the pains came more and more frequently, though the midwife said that it could still take days. The Lord Chancellor and Lady Sunderland arrived, and one by one, all of the Privy Council. The lady of the bedchamber and the midwife turned back the covers at the bottom of the bed so that everyone could see the queen’s bare feet and knees under the expensive nightgown. The Dowager Queen, Catherine of Braganza, entered as if she were expecting a party and remarked that the room was overcrowded and the birth taking too long.
“He’s so high,” Mary Beatrice said pitifully to the king. “I can feel him so high!”
“He will come.” The king nodded towards Father Petre. “We’re all praying for him, my dear, and for you.”
She moaned as the pains came again, gasped when they stopped, and the king pulled off his wig and held it before her face to shield her from the staring faces of the official witnesses. She clutched his hand as the pain came again, and Livia edged towards the door, unnoticed by all the people, the senior nobility, the Privy Council and the ladies-in-waiting who were watching the bed. Livia got silently out of the room and ran downstairs to the queen’s private kitchen two floors down, halfway between the cellars and the ground floor of the palace. Here the queen’s private cooks made her hot chocolate or a light breakfast to eat before the meal served to the full court. Here they made little pastries, which they served in her rooms with the tea that they blended and brewed for her.
Now, they were cooking tisanes and heating birthing ale, boiling up kettles of water for her to wash her face and hands. One cook was making a sustaining broth in case labor lasted for hours, another was making sweet jellies and pastries to tempt her appetite. Others were preparing glasses of wine and dishes of tea for the guests and witnesses in the bedchamber. Livia went through the kitchen without a word to anyone, took a cape from the back of the door, crossed an inner court at a gliding walk, and entered the gardens, heading towards the shelter of an overgrown arbor. Rob Reekie rose up from the hidden seat and Livia hid a sigh of relief. He was hunched with one arm held awkwardly inside his coat. She saw, with a leap of delight, that he had a tiny bundle tucked under his jacket.
“You’ve got him,” she breathed.
“I have him,” he said, opening the front of his jacket and transferring the tiny bundle into her arms.
“Why doesn’t he cry?” she demanded. “Don’t tell me he’s weakly?”
“No, he’s just fallen asleep, he’s a healthy baby.”
“Newborn?”
“Born this morning. His mother bled to death, God bless her. I couldn’t save her. I’ve left the cord on him.”
Livia stood still before him and let him open her cape, press the baby into her arms, and close the cape over them both. She realized that he had no awareness of the intimacy of the gesture. He touched her waist, pressed the baby against her breast; but all he was thinking of was keeping the baby warm.
“We’ll never speak of this again,” he told her. “And you will write to the Alderman.”
“I will,” she promised. “And I will tell Matteo something to make him release Hester from their betrothal.”
“You won’t tell him the truth? And you will never use his fathering against me again?”
“How could I?” she said reasonably. “It’s a weapon that can only be used once.”
He ducked his head and turned to leave. “God bless you and keep you safe,” he said tenderly.
Livia warmed for a moment and then realized, with a little jolt, that he was not blessing her, but speaking to the baby. “He will be King of England!” she exclaimed. “He doesn’t need your prayers.”
“I don’t want to know,” Rob said and disappeared.
* * *
Livia cleared the kitchen, saying that she needed privacy to make a special caudle for women in childbirth that only her family knew. Even in the kitchen, two floors below the bedchamber, Livia could hear the sound of people walking anxiously backwards and forwards. The whole palace, all of England, everyone was waiting for the news. There was an urgent clatter of wooden clogs on the stone stairs and the midwife came running into the room and looked around for the cooks. “She wants small ale!” she exclaimed.
“In the jug,” Livia said. “I’m bringing a warming pan.”
The midwife grabbed the jug and dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. As soon as she was gone, Livia lifted a warming pan down from the hook and opened it. It was dusty with ashes and blackened with soot. Livia swept a cloth around, and tucked the sleeping baby, nestled in his blankets, in the pan. She unwrapped the rags around the baby to see a long trail of the cord and smears of dried blood. Livia opened the door to the meat larder and put her hand into the butchered belly of a hanging buck. She scooped fresh blood and smeared some on the baby’s head, and dripped some on his little belly. He stirred, but he did not wake as she closed the lid on the warming pan, and taking it by the handle with a cloth over her hand to protect her from imaginary heat, ran up the stairs after the midwife and pushed her way through the crowd of onlookers into the queen’s bedroom.
Mrs. Cellier, the queen’s midwife, lifted a corner of the bedding, and Livia thrust in the pan, so that it lay next to the queen’s open thighs. The queen was writhing in her pain, crying out in a deep lowing voice like a tortured animal.
“Can you not give her brandy or something for the pain?” Livia demanded.
“The king says no,” a midwife replied, gesturing to the knot of men standing at the foot of the bed and half a dozen more behind them. The king himself was with his wife, at the head of the bed, bare-headed, his huge wig in his hand.
“Has he been here all this while and not thought to get her a screen?” Livia said to herself and went to the head of the bed on the opposite side to the king. Mary Beatrice was half raised on pillows, the veins standing out in her temples, her cheeks blown out, bellowing with pain. “Not long now…” Livia promised.
“I die! Oh! You kill me!” the queen screamed.
“Now!” the midwife exclaimed. “Now he is coming. Push, Your Majesty!”
Mary Beatrice screamed like a woman being stabbed. “Now be still!” commanded the midwife. “Gather your strength. Rest.”
The queen dropped back panting; they saw her look around the room at the staring faces, then her face contorted with pain and the midwife shouted: “Now! Push again! Now!”
With another scream Mary Beatrice bore down in the bed and, as if to help, Livia plunged forward blocking the view of everyone as the baby slithered in a rush of blood and waters out of the queen’s body. Livia hit the midwife’s hand aside so that she could see the baby’s legs emerging from his mother, and caught sight of a tiny little penis. Dizzy with relief, she stepped back and the midwife drew the baby out of the sheets and held him in her arms.
She made an odd gesture with her hand to her head, and Lady Sunderland immediately repeated the sign to the king. Livia, watching, realized that there was more than one conspiracy around the bed, but a baby boy had been truly birthed, none of the plots had been needed. The child was a boy, the midwife had signaled to Lady Sunderland, she had signaled to the king: they had a papist Prince of Wales.
The cord was still pulsing as the midwife cut it with a knife, and the second midwife drew the afterbirth from the queen’s body, as the queen cried out with her last pain, and then there was a terrifying silence. “I don’t hear the child cry?” Mary Beatrice whispered.
The baby choked, and then cried: a strong wail that made the whole room exclaim.
“Did you hear?” Livia said exultantly to Mary Beatrice. “Do you hear now?”
She bent and kissed her friend’s sweating face and then stepped back, drawing the warming pan from the bed. Madame de Labadie took the baby from the midwife and went to sweep him away to his nursery, but the king stopped her. “What is it?” he asked gruffly.
“What Your Majesty desires,” she replied.
Lord Feversham shouted: “Room for the Prince of Wales!” and everyone was laughing and congratulating the king and following the baby from the room. The king called upon the Privy Councillors to confirm that they had seen the birth of his son and they each swore that they had. Gracefully, helpfully, Livia carried the warming pan down the stairs, through the hall, and up to her private rooms.
Inside, with the door locked, she opened the pan. Amazingly, the baby was still asleep. He was dusty but seemed none the worse for his brief imprisonment. Livia felt a rush of exhaustion that the great gamble was over, that her great crime was not needed. The baby opened his midnight blue eyes and opened his rosebud mouth. His perfect little face flushed red as his eyebrows compressed; with a little gurgle he passed a black sticky mess into the blanket that held him, and he started to cry.
“God,” said Livia with revulsion. “And now I’ve got to get rid of you.”
HATTON GARDEN, LONDON, SUMMER 1688
Londoners learned that the queen had been delivered of a son by a blaze of fireworks and a roar of cannon from the king’s army. The announcement did nothing to quell the riots but brought more people out on the streets in a volatile mix of protests and celebrations. Bonfires to celebrate were set up in the marketplaces, and whole carcasses of meat were roasted on spits, but instead of joyous feasts, they became the rallying point of riot. The anti-papists ate the roast meat and then rampaged, drunk, down the high streets, breaking windows where anyone showed a light to celebrate the birth of the prince.
Alderman Johnson made his way through the streets in his coach with two armed guards riding on the back, and found the Hatton Garden area was quiet. Julia had a glass of Madeira and biscuits served to him in the parlor.
“Your friend Lady Avery must be riding sky-high,” Alderman Johnson remarked to his daughter. “I had a letter from her lawyers this morning.”
“What does it say?” Julia asked her father, looking up from some handkerchiefs she was hemming for Hester’s trousseau.
“Haven’t had time to read it yet,” he said. “It came with such a run of creditors’ notes at the news of a prince that I had no time to do anything but put up our rates, and stuff it in my pocket to bring to you. The prince is already good for business! The rioters will go home, the country will settle down, and we can concentrate on trade. We can outtrade the Dutch and—if we need to—fight them on the ground in the Indies and the Americas. With a prince in hand and perhaps more to come, I expect to see the king take on the Dutch closer to home as well. He’ll support the French against them, and while the two of them are fighting over the Netherlands, we can move in on their overseas markets.”
