Dark Angels (46 page)

“Present the men. I’ll want your name and how long you’ve been in service.”

The guardsmen lined up, making a square around the chamber, whose walls held muskets, swords, and pikes, their weapons. As Richard stood before each, the man told him his name and history. Only of few of them were old veterans, having served in Cromwell’s armies. One of them had been in Spain in the 1650s when King Charles had pulled together a regiment to fight for the king of Spain. The rest had begun their life as soldiers with Queen Catherine’s arrival. They’d seen service fighting the great fire of London and protecting the palace and city gates during the Dutch wars. And a few, a very few, had served on ships as part of a landing force when the last real war with the Dutch had been fought.

“Send word to my lieutenants to call on me by this evening. Send me the duty roster. Muster yourselves on the parade ground tomorrow at dawn, and we’ll see how you drill. That’s all.”

“Cocky bastard,” said one once Richard was out of hearing.

“He did well in Tangier, distinguished himself,” said the sergeant. “And if I’m not mistaken, he was on board the
Revenge
with the Duke of York in the first Dutch war. I remember a lad that very well may have been him. Held his own there, too, running messages in a longboat for His Royal Highness even though cannonballs were exploding in the water all around him. We may have us a real soldier here.” The sergeant sighed. He’d been with Cromwell. He knew what real soldiering meant. It meant the easy life was done.

I
N THE CHAMBER
the king used for his privy council meetings, Balmoral finished the last of his report to that council, the smallest, most powerful of the king’s. There was nothing in the report about a Henri Ange. “And last, I’ve appointed Richard Saylor captain of Her Majesty’s bodyguard,” he said.

“Saylor?” Buckingham, who had been slumped in his chair, eyes closed, dozing—a habit of his during the reports of other council members—sat up. “Sent by His Majesty back to France with our dear princess?” There was a note of incredulity in his voice. “The young man who bungled the business in France?”

“I think highly of him,” Balmoral replied.

King Charles, who had been examining the spaniel in his lap for fleas, stopped, raised his eyes to his councillors.

“He acted with greatest caution, almost killed two horses bringing us the news, made an excellent and most thorough report afterward.” Balmoral was calm. A report, he did not say, that the captain general of His Majesty’s army had had to pull strings to find and read for himself.

“Which I found full of rumor and unsubstantiated statements,” Buckingham replied. “Why such a change at this time?”

“We have just spent the past quarter hour listening to His Grace explain to council that he foresees Guy Fawkes as well as Ascension Day will be unusually dangerous this year,” said Lord Arlington, these days the king’s favorite councillor. It was over Arlington that Buckingham and Balmoral had allied. Arlington referred to the coming date of November 5, when London remembered a plot to destroy both houses of Parliament by blowing them up with gunpowder. Although the event had happened in the time of the king’s grandfather, the plotters had been Catholic, and that was not forgotten. Balmoral would be stationing guards throughout Whitehall and up to the Strand on each of the celebration days.

“We have word there is some stirring among the Anabaptists and Presbyterians.” Balmoral stared hard at Buckingham, who used both groups to his own ends.

“No Quakers?” It was King Charles, who spoke for the first time. “But, of course, all of them are still imprisoned, are they not?” The question wasn’t meant to be answered. It was the king’s way to point out one more time how displeased he was by the various acts passed against his will by Parliament and the machinations of different men seated at this table to suppress all religion save that of the Church of England.

There was a silence.

“I don’t think this is the time to change the queen’s bodyguard,” Buckingham said.

“It is precisely the time. The bodyguard had been without a captain for some time. The appointment of one is necessary. The recent death of a beloved member of the royal family, the talk surrounding it, has stirred feelings, and we lie perched between two celebrations most apt to set off those feelings. I would not have Her Majesty—or anyone—harmed.” Balmoral spoke dispassionately. He might have been describing an experiment in a laboratory.

“Saylor has my blessing,” said King Charles.

Buckingham shrugged indifferently but exchanged a look with another man around the table, which Balmoral caught. Confound him, Balmoral thought, he’s plotting with someone else against me now. “I have no more to report.”

King Charles went back to scratching the belly of his spaniel.

“Our next item is His Grace’s journey to France in the next month,” said Arlington.

“I remind everyone that this treaty Buckingham goes over to sign commits us to war with the Hollanders, and our most pressing need is new ships,” said one of the councillors.

“And soldiers, unless you intend to fight every battle at sea,” said Balmoral.

“Am I to delay the signing while you quibble over funds?” Buckingham looked around the table. “I’ll fund the building of a ship myself. I’ll fund a regiment myself.”

“Enough drama, George. My ministers are within their rights to bring up the matter of funds, since we are inevitably short of them.” King Charles didn’t look up from his spaniel. “Our cousin King Louis will give us funds.”

As I wager he’s already begun to do, thought Balmoral, watching the king.

“And I’ll go to the House of Commons at the proper time and ask for money, as I always do.” At a snap of King Charles’s fingers, the little spaniel jumped from his lap, sat on her haunches, and raised her front legs beguilingly. “Mimi teaches me how, don’t you, girl?” The men around this table had tired of his dogs long ago. Not a one of them smiled.

“You shouldn’t have to beg,” said a council member.

“No indeed,” agreed the king in an affable way. “I will be highly displeased if the purpose of Buck’s journey is bandied about. We don’t need the mob screaming popish plot—or plot of any kind—at this particular moment. And if I am to beg for funds from the obstreperous gentlemen who make up my Commons, I want to do it on my own terms.”

“Your Majesty will have no trouble coming up with reasons to fight the Hollanders again,” said Balmoral.

“Particularly since last time we did, they sailed down the Thames and were allowed to burn half our fleet,” said Buckingham.

“Allowed?” Balmoral rose, his chair clattering noisily backward behind him. “Implying what, sir? If we weren’t before the presence of His Majesty, I’d draw my sword and fight you in this very chamber! You are an impediment to this kingdom and this council. I don’t forget that it was your jackals who called for an investigation and very nearly toppled this council. I challenge you, you confounded, whoring son of a bitch dog—”

“Do sit down, Edmund. At once. I won’t have any dog maligned in such a way,” said King Charles. And when the jest failed to turn the moment: “Gadzooks, man, sit down. How are we to conduct the business of this kingdom if my council murder one another at the council table? If I thought you’d been at fault, I would have removed you as captain general of my armies. George, your words are amazingly ill judged.”

“A poor jest. My wit falls flat. I do beg your pardon.”

Balmoral sat, but it was evident he was furious. His hands shook as he gathered his papers.

“I will now make a report upon the state of the treasury,” said the council member in charge of the treasury. Buckingham closed his eyes and leaned his head back to doze, while King Charles gazed out a window. The report from the treasury never changed. The crown was in arrears, back pay was owed to servants from musicians to hawk keepers, from sailors to soldiers. There was always some fresh plea from someone to be paid. There was always some new plan to borrow, but this was always atop old loans, which were never repaid. No one enjoyed the reports from the treasury because no one knew how to remedy the situation. The House of Commons granted money, but it was not enough for His Majesty’s pleasures, all their ambitions, and certainly not enough to fight wars. A large and grateful sigh emerged from Buckingham when the report ended.

“Are we finished? Is there more?” asked King Charles, but it really wasn’t a question. He stood, effectively ending the meeting, his spaniel held in the crook of his arm. Balmoral remained at the table, so when the others had left, the king nodded to him. “Don’t take all day, Edmund. I want to walk in the park while there’s still a bit of sun outside.”

“You are aware I have placed a taster in your household, the queen’s, and York’s.”

The king’s eyes moved over Balmoral’s face, considering each blink of the other man’s eye, each change in the fold of a wrinkle. “I am, but I repeat I am seriously doubtful someone will poison me to make Jemmy king.”

“There’s word, not yet verified, that an expert in poison is now in London. This person”—Balmoral cleared his throat—“was most recently in the household of Monsieur.”

The king stilled.

“I would, at the moment, sir, prefer to keep this information between you and me.”

“Who is behind this?”

“That, sir, is what I would wish to ascertain, and why I wish for secrecy.”

“Fifth Monarchy? Jesuits? Those Scotch Presbyterians of yours?”

“The queen’s life may be in real danger.” Balmoral was calm. “A reflection, perhaps, of certain rumors afloat, certain actions of the last year. I’ve not spoken of this with the others,” he continued in the way he fought his battles, steadily, sending in pikeman after pikeman until sheer numbers tired the enemy.

“The others?”

“This council. Nor do I intend to, yet.”

“I trust you have your reasons?”

“I do.”

“And you will share them with me at the proper moment?”

“I will.”

“I want this person found.”

“The poisoner and he who is behind it all? I have your permission to seek both? For that is what I do.”

The king didn’t answer, and after a moment, Balmoral stood, bowed, took his portfolio, and left the chamber. To his annoyance, Buckingham was in an adjoining chamber, drinking a goblet of wine. Balmoral could smell its red grape from the doorway. How much I desire a drink, he thought.

“I wanted to ascertain there were no hard feelings between us.”

Balmoral was silent, and Buckingham added offhandedly, “You seem hasty in your appointment of the queen’s captain. I can think of a dozen men who would have liked the position and deserved it more.”

“If all goes smoothly, I will be congratulated. If something should—God forbid it—happen, Captain Saylor bears the brunt of it.”

Buckingham smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that. It was a game in there, Bally, old man, to make others think you and I are enemies, to throw them off the scent of our friendship and mutual intention, nothing more. Mustn’t let them think we’re plotting.”

Your confounded plotting, thought Balmoral, not mine. Yes, we should have a queen who can birth an heir. Yes, he should divorce, and we’ve made the way clear with the Roos bill. Yes, he knows it and will act upon it or not in his own time. But to kill the queen? If you are behind such, and I suspect you are, you go beyond the bounds of decency. You always have. God save me, but I despise you. Rumor has it Monmouth will assume my place as captain general the moment I breathe my last. I see your touch in that. Rumor has it the king, in exchange for your favoring war, has promised you will lead the army against the Dutch. Over my dead body. I am going to serve your fair, fat head to His Majesty upon a platter. A service to this kingdom before I die, as I am surely doing. Confounded Salome herself will have nothing on me.

Balmoral bowed. The two dukes smiled falsely and ruthlessly at each other.

I
N HIS MOST
private of chambers, stirred to anger and more by his encounter with Buckingham, Balmoral stared at a beautiful crystal decanter. He kept it inside a handsome cabinet, so that he might ignore it. But it was a siren. Singing to him through closed doors at any time it chose. To have some of what was inside it or not, was the question, whether he could risk a small taste of the ambrosia it held? What else had he to do this day, in case the drinking should not cease, as it was wont to do…this day and the morrow, for it was always a morrow when he woke, ill unto death and with little or no memory of the hours before and with guilt screeching in his ear, as his wife had done before she joined him in drink and died a drunken fool.

Riggs knocked, poked in his head. “A lady awaits.”

Balmoral frowned, his temper up, as always it was when this siren witch devil tempted, and he held her at bay. “I am not receiving visitors.”

“Not even Mistress Verney?”

A few moments later, Riggs ushered Alice into Balmoral’s closet. She wore her mask and short, hooded cloak, which told him at once that something had occurred.

“A moment only, Your Grace. It is of great importance.”

She sat in a chair whose arms and legs were twisting serpents of wood carved by Grinling Gibbons. At the ends of the arms, each serpent’s mouth held a small, darkly grained apple. If one looked closely, one could see that at the ends of the tails were tiny women, long hair flowing into more serpents. Alice untied her mask, let back the hood of her cloak. Her face was pale. “I’ve seen Henri Ange.”