Dawnlands, page 9
“Then as a free woman, I will stay with you until the danger is past,” she said.
“There’s danger now,” he said, looking out into the darkness where the wind was whipping up the dark sea into rolling waves with whitecaps.
“I’m not afraid of the sea,” she said—a woman of the ocean who had shot the breakers of the Atlantic shore in her own canoe since childhood.
He had to stop himself reaching out to cup her defiant face in his rough palms. He wanted to draw her closer, hold her, wrap her in his old cape, keep her safe. He wondered at himself that he should have become so fond of a stranger young enough to be his granddaughter.
“I should order you to safety.”
“After we land,” she bargained with him. “When we see what danger there is. Order me then.” She nearly trapped him into agreement.
“And you’ll obey me then?”
She laughed like the Pokanoket child he remembered. “Yes! If I think you’re right!”
“Very well,” he said, hiding his tenderness. “You can stay with me as we march on London, unless it looks like there’s danger, and then you’ll go to Alinor.”
“Agreed,” she said cheerfully.
ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1685
To Lady James Avery,
Madam,
I have been commanded to muster the militia and prepare for an invasion by Argyll and Monmouth. I doubt that local forces will be able to hold the rebels from marching on London.
Accordingly, I am sending my carriage with outriders today, to bring you home to safety. I order you, madam, to make your excuses to Their Majesties, and come home.
Your obdt. servant and husband,
James Avery
Livia refolded the letter and tapped it, thoughtfully, against her rouged lips. Disobeying her husband would be a great risk; he had an undeniable legal right to order her home, but if she defied him and stayed, and the third civil war broke out and the royalists lost—as they had done twice before—then Livia would be on the losing side, in a royal household at the time of its fall.
Whether she should take the Avery carriage and run home to safety, or gamble everything on a royal victory, was something she could not decide, though she walked up and down the queen’s gallery, tapping the letter against her lips until it looked as if it were bloodstained in her hand.
The double doors opened and the queen came in, ladies around her, courtiers behind them. Her pale face was set in a rigid smile, as if she would deny her fears. She called for the card tables to be set up, and for a glass of wine; gaily, she challenged her courtiers to a game of ombre, and the musicians started to play. Livia was not deceived; she drew the queen into a window seat.
“Your Majesty—is there bad news?”
Queen Mary held up her fan to hide her words. “Our commander Lord Dumbarton is marching to Scotland with our army.”
“He’s just set out north, in the hopes of finding the invasion?” Livia asked incredulously.
“What else can he do? Better to march north than do nothing.”
The two women looked blankly at each other. “I know nothing about warfare,” Livia said.
“And now the king tells me that there are uprisings in the south also.”
“What sort of uprisings?” Livia cried. “Why are they not put down? They wouldn’t allow any uprising in Venice. You’re not allowed to even think against the Doge in Venice. Why does the king allow it?”
“Have you heard of a town by the name of ‘Taunton’?”
Livia shook her head, her sense of the huge strangeness of England all around them.
“It’s beyond Bath,” the queen said, as if she were describing New England far away in the Americas, over the ocean. “Farther west even than Bath. They have called out the militia against rebels there, in Somerset.”
“Is the militia loyal to us there?”
“I don’t think so. They sound frightened. They write to the king that there have been births of monstrous girls, and an earthquake, and three suns in the sky. They say this foretells the fall of the throne.”
“I don’t believe that there were three suns in the sky. How could there be?”
“It’s what they’re saying!” the queen repeated unhappily.
In the room before them someone threw down their cards and laughed at their bad luck. Livia cast an irritated glance before she remembered that she was supposed to be carefree. She smiled as if the queen had said something amusing. She put her hand to her throat as if she were overwhelmed, and she laughed and laughed, flicking out her fan.
The queen caught sight of the stained letter in Livia’s hand. “Oh! What have you there? Is it news of our ship?”
“Yes,” Livia lied smoothly. “As I promised, I have a ship for you. We need not be afraid of suns and monsters. We will be safe, whatever happens.”
“We can sail away? We can go to Rome? The ship will take me to my mama, Duchess Laura, at Rome? I can tell her I am coming home?”
“Yes,” Livia said boldly. “And my carriage is coming from Yorkshire. At the first bad news we will get safely away, either by road in my carriage or by sea in my ship.”
AT SEA, SPRING 1685
Monmouth set a watch and turned in to his cabin for the night; the senior men had bunks in shared cabins, and the rest slept in corners of the hold, curled up in spaces between the cargo, or wrapped themselves in their new jackets against the onshore wind and slept on the deck. Ned and Rowan found a corner on a folded sail and made a comfortable nest. Rowan lay on her back and looked up at the night sky, the sail sometimes billowing out to hide the stars from her, sometimes dropping back when the wind eased. Ned folded his arms behind his head and watched her profile as he fell asleep.
Suddenly there was a shout from the lookout, and the sound of a cannon firing, the whistle of a cannonball and the great splash as it landed in the sea just astern. The ship rolled as the steersmen dragged on the wheel to change direction.
Ned was on his feet in a moment, Rowan beside him. The watch clanged the bell to muster the soldiers, and the lookout on the mast pointed to a yacht that had suddenly loomed out of the darkness behind them. Ned, glancing back at the quarterdeck, saw Monmouth, bare-headed, wearing nothing but a white shirt and his breeches, dashing up the companionway. Ned jumped up and ran after him, Rowan beside him. “Get down!” he threw at her over his shoulder. “Get behind the mast!”
“Ferryman!” Monmouth yelled down from the quarterdeck. “Is that the Amsterdam magistrates?”
Ned raced up to the quarterdeck and took the telescope that Monmouth offered him. He could see the pale outline of a yacht with no lights, broadside to them, ready to fire again, grappling hooks at the ready and the crew preparing to board. He focused on the flag of the States General. “Aye. Looks like they’ve got their warrant. That was a warning shot. They’re signaling us to hove to. They’re preparing to board.”
“We’ll run for it,” Monmouth decided. “Captain, cram on sail, get us away. Ferryman—tell them a round of cannon, to keep them back, but make sure to miss. We can’t sink them!”
“Yes, sire,” Ned said and jumped down to the deck and slid down the ladder to the gun deck. The crew were ready, each standing by their guns, the hatches open, the guns rolled forward, each gunner waiting the command, the gun commander halfway up the companionway, ready for his orders.
“Fire to miss,” Ned told him. “Fore and aft the ship. Make sure you’re wide. Don’t hit it.”
“Aye, aye,” the man said steadily. He turned and raised his voice to his crew. “Fore and aft. Wide. Everyone wide. On my word—” He glanced down the waist of the ship to see that they were all poised and ready. “Fire at will!” he yelled.
There was a roar of explosions and a rumble as each cannon spat out flame and rolled back into the ship, each gunner leaping aside to avoid being crushed by the recoil. At once they swarmed over the guns, ramming down gunpowder, wadding, and another cannonball and readied the pan for another round. Above them on deck they heard the crackle of musket fire. Ned prayed briefly that Rowan was hidden.
“Hold your fire!” Ned yelled. He peered out through a gun port.
“Hold fire!” the gun commander confirmed.
“They’ve dropped sail, they’re not pursuing,” Ned said. “Stand by.”
He waited a moment longer, and then Rowan’s head appeared, leaning down into the hatchway. “The ship’s turning,” she told him. She was pushed aside by a tall man who scrambled down the companionway.
“And who the hell’re you?” the man demanded in a strong Scots accent.
“Well done, lads!” Ned said to the gun crew. “Stand down, stand easy.”
They gave a ragged cheer, rolled back their weapons, and closed the gunports. Each man cleaned his cannon, tidied his station, and closed the store of gunpowder. Ned tipped his cap to the man, obviously a gentleman, one of Monmouth’s officers. “Ned Ferryman, sir.”
“An’ who gave you the order to fire?”
“Monmouth.”
He was thrown. Ned looked around to see that everything was safe, especially that lights were out, and moved towards the ladder.
“I am in command of the gun deck,” the man insisted. “I should have given the order. I am Andrew, Lord Fletcher. Commander of the cavalry.”
“I must report to the duke.”
“I shall report to the duke,” Andrew Fletcher insisted.
Ned stood back to let him lead the way up the ladder and up the companionway to where Monmouth was waiting on the bridge.
“Cannons discharged and rolled back, sire,” Andrew Fletcher said.
“Thank you,” Monmouth said briefly. He turned to Ned. “Will you stay up here on the bridge now, Ferryman? Take a watch. You’ve been of great service to me today. I won’t forget it.” To the steersman he said: “Set a course. Southwest coast of England. Devon.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Monmouth went below and Andrew Fletcher followed him without another word as Rowan appeared out of the darkness.
“You go and sleep,” Ned said. “I’ll come and find you at dawn.” Obediently, she turned to go. “Were you afraid?” he asked her curiously. “When the cannons fired?”
She gave a little shrug of indifference. “The worst has already happened to me,” she said simply. “Anything now is just finishing Misery Swamp.”
“When your king was killed?”
“Killed by a traitor when we were already defeated. Killed before us, and his wife and son captured, and me taken with them,” she said. “We’d rather have died than lose them. But we didn’t die. I saw him go down, and then they took her and his son: our boy.”
He reached for her and turned up the collar of her cloak as if to keep her warm. “There will be a dawn,” he told her. “You’re a child of the Dawnlands. It seems like very dark night now for you, but you’re young, you’ll see a lot of dawns—and they’ll be happier than this one, I promise you.”
THE COFFEEHOUSE, SERLE COURT, LONDON, SPRING 1685
Matthew, first to arrive at the coffeehouse, chose a bench seat with a high back, tucked away in the corner. Most of the customers were seated around the large central table, newspapers of the day and pamphlets scattered before them, discussing the implications of a recent judgment, and prices for legal services, vacancies for clerks, and the delay at the courts. Serle’s patrons were mostly lawyers, juniors, clerks, and students seeking work. Clerks for rival chambers were seated at one end of the table, assigning cases for their lawyers; one or two clients hovered anxiously, hoping to meet their lawyers, some with sheafs of old papers hoping for free advice.
A stunned silence fell when Livia walked in and paused, savoring the attention. She looked around her as if she might buy the place outright. Mr. Hart bustled up to her, bowed, and offered to seat her; but she caught sight of Matthew rising from his corner table, and walked past the owner without a word. Her maid followed and drew out the chair as Livia put back her veil, kissed Matthew on both cheeks, and then seated herself. Her maid stood silently behind her.
Mr. Hart placed a small cup of coffee before her with a heaped bowl of sugar. Livia nodded, took a sip, and then regarded her son.
“You have spoken to the women of the warehouse?”
“To my foster mothers, yes,” he said, nettled.
She smiled at his pride. “They agree?”
“I had to speak to Captain Shore, he sails in the middle of June. He will reserve two berths for you. I had to tell him who would be aboard.”
“He will be discreet?” she demanded.
“He doesn’t want to be mixed up in it at all,” Matthew told her bluntly. “He won’t speak of it, and he hopes you will not have need of his ship.”
“They are royalists now?” she asked curiously.
“They take no interest in it,” Matthew said. “They are loyal and law-abiding, and they don’t want trouble.”
“But the brother in New England…” She waved a hand as if to show that she could not recall his name. “He was an old Cromwell soldier, was he not? Fled abroad after his defeat? He was on the other side, the wrong side?”
“I don’t know,” Matthew said cautiously. “It was a long time ago.”
“Long before you were born, caro figlio,” she said, suddenly turning her attention to him. “You have done very well for me. Your mother is grateful to her clever boy. You will be rewarded. You will see the benefit of serving me. Do I have to pay before we sail?”
“You do, and if you don’t sail, you lose your money,” Matthew said awkwardly. “I am sorry, but those are the usual terms.”
She shrugged her shoulders; her dark cape fell slightly open, and Matthew could see the gleam of jewels on her breasts in the low-cut gown. “It is of no matter,” she said. She nodded to her maid, who handed a heavy purse to Matthew. “This is enough?”
He untied the string and looked inside. “It is more than enough. About half would be—”
“Take it! Take it! It may be that you have to buy some things that we need, or pay a wherryman, or who knows what? But pay Captain Shore with it, and reserve our berths.”
Matthew nodded and pocketed the purse.
“And if we do not sail—if all this has been a fuss about nothing, as the English do—then I will introduce you at court,” she promised him. “I shall see you are rewarded whatever happens.”
“I don’t need a reward,” he said.
“We do,” she corrected him. “We who serve for love should be rewarded for our love.”
“I just want to finish my studies and become a lawyer,” Matthew protested.
“You shall be an ambassador,” she decided. “And you will need a seat, a country seat.” She gestured to the communal table where the men were talking and exchanging papers. “You don’t want to spend your life here, arguing with fools about details. You shall have a post in one of the foreign courts, or you shall become a judge, or advise the privy council. So you will need a name, a title, and land.”
Matthew gaped at her. “I wouldn’t know how to begin!”
“Not at once,” she agreed. “But it was always my intention that you should be a great man. I had hoped to get you Northside Manor; but Sir James is stubborn. The place is entailed on the next male heir, and he will not adopt you. Anyway—he will not die soon. Probably not for years.”
“I wouldn’t want Sir James’s place,” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t be his heir even if he… At the warehouse… we don’t speak of him. There was some offense…”
She made a dismissive wave of her hand. “Old quarrels,” she said vaguely. “He and Alys are old enemies. From long ago. He injured her mother and they stole from him or something.”
“My grandmother Alinor would not steal,” he said flatly. “Nor my mother, Alys. There must be a mistake.”
“Oh! He adores Alinor!” she said airily. “And she forgave him. It’s all long ago. It matters nothing to us.”
He blinked, observing that now there was a shared view of what mattered to them—that now they were a couple. “Well, anyway,” he said uncertainly. “I don’t look for Sir James’s estate, and I know of no other.”
“They do, though,” she said as a thought struck her. “The women. They are continually speaking of the place where they lived. In the tidelands, what do they call it, Foulmire? I always thought it sounded completely vile.”
“Could I get a house there?” he asked, startled.
She shrugged. “If you wanted it, I could discover if there was a royal manor that we might get.”
“It’s the only place I would want! Mother Alinor could live there! She has always wanted to return, she’s never even gone back for a visit. It’s her home, her childhood home.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I offer you the chance of any royal manor in England and you want a house in a sea of mud so an old lady can live there?”
He did not hear the sarcasm in her voice. “Yes! Yes! It would be to repay their kindness to me. She’s been like a mother to me, she and Ma. If I could get a house for them there, and they could live in comfort, restored to their home, and if it was the big house that they speak of, Mother Alinor could have her own stillroom and an herb garden!”
“Toll-loll!” she said, smiling at him. “I can ask; if that’s what you really want, and if it is good enough for us, rents and so on. But it shall be in our name, not theirs. And you shall be the lord of the manor, not them. They will have no rights there, they will be your guests.”
“It would be such a wonderful thing!” He was filled with enthusiasm. “I would be so happy.”
She smiled. “See? You do want a reward for service! Everyone has a price, Son. Remember it. But I hope you learn more ambition. This place sounds like a lonely muddy little strand. But I will ask: if it is your choice. If the house has an estate of a decent size, and if there is a church with the living attached, and a parliamentary seat, then I shall try for it. What’s it called again?”
