The Queen's Exiles (35 page)

The two Brethren cocked their pistols. One slid his barrel into the spy hole in the door, a hand-sized square at eye level. He fired. A scream sounded beyond the door. He stepped back and the other man took his place, aimed his pistol through the hole, and fired. He stepped back. They took turns, each one with his pistol reloaded as soon as the other had fired. Faint pistol shots sounded from the far end, too. Fenella knew the Brethren there were firing through the far door’s spy hole. The muffled cries and thuds and scuffling told her that Ramos and his men were dying, one by one. She and Kate and Robert were on their feet, still behind the crates, the children white-faced at the sounds of the slaughter. Fenella took hold of the girl’s icy hand and wrapped her other arm around the boy’s shoulders. He was trembling. So was Fenella.

It was over in minutes. Adam lifted the bar and opened the door. The two Brethren stepped into the corpse-filled tunnel, and Fenella heard one of the Brethren shout the password, then heard the far door scrape open.

Adam came to her and the children. “Hurry, take them out now,” he told her. They shared a look of apprehension that the children would have to go past the soldiers’ bodies, but that horror could not be helped. “Kate, Robert,” Adam said, “you must go with this lady. She’s our friend. You’ll be safe with her. Do exactly what she tells you. Understand?”

Fenella thought she had prepared herself for this good-bye with Adam, yet she felt her heart crack. She managed a sham smile. “We’ll see you at the harbor.”

He nodded and said quietly, “God keep you.”

“What?” Kate cried. “But, Father, you—”

“I can’t leave my men,” he said. Backing up toward the stairs, he pointed to the tunnel. “Go with the lady!
Now!
” He bolted up the steps.

Fenella took the hands of the two children and they watched him disappear through the open door at the top. She heard the scuffling of men fighting above. And she smelled something. Smoke—an unmistakable acrid whiff snaking down the stairs.
Fire. Dear God, what is Adam heading into?
She squeezed the children’s hands as much to steady herself as them. “My name is Fenella. I’ll get you safely out, I promise.” Letting go Kate’s hand, Fenella pulled her dirk from its sheath at her waist, ready to take them into the tunnel. “Come along now.”

Kate balked. “Listen to that! They’re attacking Father! We can’t just leave him!”

“Your father is a strong fighter. He’ll get through this and meet us at the canal. Come!”

“No!”

“Kate, it’s what he
wants
.” She turned to Robert, who was trembling so much she bent to reassure him. He looked as dazed as a sleepwalker in a nightmare.

“No!” Kate snatched the dirk from Fenella’s hand.

Fenella said as steadily as she could, “Kate, give me that. You’re not thinking clearly. You cannot fight soldiers.”

“I can’t leave him!” She turned and darted up the stairs.

“Kate!” Fenella tried to think. She had to go after the girl but could not send Robert into the corpse-filled tunnel alone. He would never go. Nor could she leave him here in lonely terror. “Robert, we have to get your sister.” She grabbed his hand and together they ran after Kate up the stairs.

At the top the sounds of voices and scuffling feet got louder, the smell of smoke stronger. Holding Robert behind her, Fenella looked out into the kitchen. She saw no one. But danger blazed on the far side. The hall was in flames.

The smoke was so thick Adam was coughing painfully as he swung his sword at a young soldier. The soldier parried weakly, as exhausted from the smoke and heat as Adam was. Flames leapt around them, the heat so intense Adam felt as though his face were cracking. A chunk of blazing ceiling crashed between them. The soldier flinched, cast a frightened look at the wall of flames getting closer, then turned and ran.

Adam stumbled, gasping for breath, looking around for more of the foe. Looking for Curry and Morrison. Were they dead? The fire roared like ocean rollers. He saw no one, only smoke and fire. No one but corpses. Four soldiers. Two Brethren.

Then, through the acrid haze, a shape he knew. “Curry!” Adam bolted toward him. Curry was staggering, a vicious gash in his thigh, blood soaking his leg. Adam slung his mate’s arm around his shoulder and hauled him toward the front door. It was hard to see through the blanket of smoke . . . hard to breathe. Adam stumbled on a body and almost slipped on blood by the man’s head. It was the blacksmith DeWitt. Glistening blood smeared his neck. His throat had been slit.

Coughing, his chest on fire, Adam guided his limping mate on toward the air they both craved. Soldiers might fall on them the moment they stepped outside the burning house, but they had no choice. Adam only prayed that Fenella and Robert and Kate had made it down the tunnel. From the church the Brethren would get them to the canal. Staggering on with Curry, Adam saw a rectangle of misty light looming through the smoke. The front door. Open.

“My lord!”

Adam whipped around. “Morrison!” He rejoiced to see his skinny boatswain stumbling toward him through the smoke. Morrison was bleeding from a wound on the side of his head and Curry was hobbling from his gashed thigh and Adam’s forearm bled, but they all were still standing. “We’ve licked ’em, my lord,” Morrison said with grim glee, panting.

“All?” Adam asked, hardly daring to believe it.

“All this lot. When the troop went down after you, the Dutchmen and me and Curry made quick work of the ones up here.”

“But where
are
the Dutchmen?” The Brethren.

“Gone, vanished, soon as the outcome was clear. And now we’d better get our hides out, too.”

Curry coughed. “He’s right, my lord. We already lost Toth.”

Adam was barely listening, his eyes on three faint figures near the staircase that led to the second floor, mere shadows in the haze. Fenella? And Robert! “Morrison, take Curry. Go!” Transferring his mate to the boatswain, Adam plunged back into the smothering smoke.

“Kate!” Fenella found the girl on all fours, coughing, overcome by the smoke. “Robert, help me. We have to get her on her feet.” Fenella took one of Kate’s arms and the boy took the other, though the heat of the fire around them was so painful even Fenella’s clothes were baking and Robert’s face was a horrible red. He helped her lift Kate and she silently blessed him. The boy had found his courage in the need to save his sister. They dragged Kate to her feet.

Dizzy from the choking smoke, Fenella felt a hand on her shoulder and jerked around, ready to claw at the soldier. She gasped. “Adam!”

“I’ve got her,” he said, lifting Kate in his arms.

“Father . . .” Robert fell against Adam’s side, coughing, almost too weak to stand.

Fenella was stunned with joy at finding Adam alive, then saw Morrison dragging Curry through the smoke, joining them. She’d never been happier to see two salty seamen!

“Come with us, Robert,” Adam said. “Fenella, the door’s this way. Follow me.”

Fenella took the boy’s hand, about to follow Adam with Kate in his arms, when a shriek stopped them all. A figure hurtled down the stairs, screaming—a woman, the back of her dress on fire. Adam’s wife. Fenella stood transfixed by Frances Thornleigh’s eyes, a lurid orange, reflecting the flames. Robert pulled his hand free. He seemed caught by an impulse to run to help his mother, who threw off the blanket around her as she ran. It was the blanket on fire, not her dress. She reached the bottom of the stairs and Fenella saw a beefy soldier following her, coughing, his face streaked with soot.

“My son!” Frances cried, pointing. The soldier lumbered forward and snatched Robert. He threw the boy over his shoulder and turned and disappeared with him into the smoke. Frances Thornleigh staggered after them, disappearing, too.

“No!” Adam cried. He set Kate down. The dazed girl rocked on her feet. “Fenella, take her!” Horrified, Fenella saw that Adam was about to plunge into the smoke and flames to go for his son. A blazing post toppled across his path. Flames on it leapt higher than his head. Morrison grabbed him, stopping him. Fenella held him back, too. She was breathless from the heat, the horror of seeing Robert taken. Adam strained in their grip. “Adam,” she said, “I know you would die for your son, but these men will follow you. They will die for
you
.”

Kate whimpered, fainting. Fenella caught her to support her. Adam turned, and Fenella saw the anguish in his red-rimmed eyes. He picked up his daughter again in his arms.

“Back the way we came,” Morrison said, hauling Curry.

They made it to the front door. As they staggered out, no soldiers fell on them. Fenella gasped breaths. Never had pure air felt and tasted so sweet.

The courtyard was a chaos of people running and shouting, neighbors streaming in—real neighbors this time, eager to stop the fire spreading to their houses. They ran with buckets of water, some already sloshing water up onto the walls.

Fenella and Adam and the others merged into the mêlée. Adam had carried Kate out, but he was as weak as the rest of them from the near-smothering smoke and he set her down. The girl looked as white as sea foam, but the fresh air revived her enough to stand on her own. She clung to her father, though, and he kept his arm around her shoulders.

“We can slip out to the street,” Morrison said, tense but eager as they watched the noisy activity of the people around them.

“And right quick, my lord,” Curry said grimly. “More soldiers will come soon.”

Fenella saw that Adam had frozen. She followed his gaze past the running people, all the way across the courtyard. Frances Thornleigh, bedraggled as a witch, stood beside a horse, frantically pushing Robert up to the rider, the soot-streaked soldier, who dragged the boy up by his collar. Robert looked dazed, tears of confusion glinting on his cheeks, as the soldier flung him on his stomach between the saddle and the horse’s neck. The soldier kicked his mount and the horse bolted through the crowd. Out the open gate he flew and cantered up the street.

Fenella looked up at Adam’s white face. People ran this way and that with their buckets, shouting about the fire. When she looked back, Frances Thornleigh was gone.

T
he French ship had sailed through the night and reached Gravesend as dawn streaked England’s pewter-colored sky. Carlos had been up before dawn and was the first to disembark. He was eager to finish his journey. His fast ride out of the Low Countries into France to shake off Alba’s men had been wearying, and in Calais, Carlos had laid low in a rat-hole alehouse for a week in case they were watching the port. But that was all behind him now. He’d sent Isabel a message to her mother’s house, telling her he was coming home.

For the final leg upriver to London he took the long ferry, as Londoners called the big barge, crowding in with fellow passengers and a cargo of bawling calves. He could have hired a private barge with four rowers for five shillings, but he saw no reason to waste even that much money. In Calais he’d had to sell his stallion, Fausto, to raise enough to buy passage. Having burned his bridges with Alba, he would have to watch every penny from now on.

Despite the early hour, the Thames was busy with watercraft on the approach to London. Small boats under sail skimmed past oared wherries and tilt boats, the watermen calling out to one another. London snugged close to the river, and as the turrets of the Tower came into view the city’s familiar smells wafted across the water: sawdust and fish, wood smoke and dung, the pungent tang of the tanneries, and a whiff of brewhouse hops. The passengers’ chatter around Carlos got more excited as London’s three great landmarks loomed ahead: the Tower, the Bridge, and St. Paul’s. The Bridge was a prime location for commerce as the city’s only viaduct, and the three-story buildings that spanned it were so tightly packed together that not a sliver of daylight squeezed between. Sheep bleated on the Southwark end, their drover waiting for the Bridge gate to open. On the other side swans rocked by the water stairs of Billingsgate, and from a wharf came the creak of a crane lifting barrels from a wherry. Smoke curled from the chimneys of bakers and brewers and housewives. London was starting its working day.

Carlos watched a squadron of swallows flit across the roof of St. Paul’s, the massive church that lorded over the sprawl of houses and shops, alehouses and livery companies. When he’d first arrived in England as a landless mercenary eighteen years ago he’d been impressed by the church’s magnificent spire, one of the tallest in Europe. It was gone now, struck by lightning a decade ago, the roof rebuilt without the spire. Still, that roof was an imposing sight, long as a battlefield, its lead expanse glinting in the strengthening summer sun.

The long ferry was headed for the legal quays just before the Bridge, where its cargo would be landed and assessed for customs. They passed the crowd of oceangoing ships forced to anchor in the Pool before the Bridge, and the rigging on the forest of masts jingled tunes in the breeze, a cheerful discord. To Carlos it sounded like a welcome. It was good to see boisterous, easygoing London after a year in occupied Brussels. Though God knew he had little enough reason to be in such a happy mood. He was hobbled with debt, his lands mortgaged, and the only way out was to start selling some of his encumbered property at a low price. That or ask Isabel’s mother for money. Isabel had assured him the lady would happily oblige, but Carlos loathed the idea. He pushed the money worry to the back of his mind as the barge came alongside the quay. This was the kind of morning that made a man feel glad to be alive. Soon, he’d be with his family.

The gangway was lowered and he and his fellow passengers started disembarking.

“Carlos!”

He almost lost his footing on the gangway when he saw Isabel. She was hurrying toward him through the stream of passengers getting off. Too impatient to wait his turn, Carlos shouldered sideways past people on the gangway and hopped off the edge and hurried to meet her. When he reached her his heart skipped. She held a baby in her arms. “My God,” he said.

Isabel grinned. “Meet your daughter, two weeks old. A bumpy passage across the Channel hurried things along. She came the day after I landed.” The baby was asleep and Isabel beamed at her, then at Carlos.

In awe, he ran his thumb tip across the baby’s tiny rosebud mouth, soft as a petal. The little lips began sucking, even in sleep. It gave Carlos a glow of joy. This child was their fourth, but the marvel never staled.

“I’ve named her Anne,” Isabel said. “Do you like it?”

“I love it. I love her. I love you.” He took his wife in his arms, baby and all, and kissed her. As their lips parted he asked, suddenly sober, “She came early. You’re all right?”

“Right as rain,” she assured him.

The baby stirred and her eyes blinked open. She frowned at Carlos as if to say,
Who are
you
?
He laughed. Then kissed the babe’s forehead.

“Let me look at you,” Isabel said. “Oh, we were so worried. Three weeks, and not knowing. But here you are!” She kissed him again.

“Where’s Nico? And Andrew and Nell?” He couldn’t wait to see them. “With your mother?”

“No, we stayed with her at first, but now she’s gone to Rosethorn House. She’s getting it ready for a visit from Her Majesty.” He knew the Queen and the Dowager Lady Thornleigh were old friends. “So we’re staying at Adam’s house.”

“Adam! He’s back?”

“Oh, you’ll hardly believe the news.” She rattled off a tale that amazed him. Adam attacking Alba’s soldiers to get his children from his wife. The Brethren supporting the attack. “In our house! He got Kate safely out and brought her home, but he had to flee before he could get Robert. Frances has him still. Oh, Carlos, Adam grieves for the boy.”

Sad news. To leave a child behind. Carlos felt even more eager to see his own. “Come, tell me all about it on the way.” With a grin at the baby he wrapped his arm around Isabel and led her past the people on the quay. Adam’s house on Bishopsgate Street was not far.

“We’re invited to Rosethorn, too,” she said as they walked. “Her Majesty arrives the day after tomorrow. She’ll be in good spirits—she always is with Mother—so it might be a good time to ask her again for a post.”

“After helping Alba?” He shook his head. “She’ll think me more of a Spanish sympathizer than ever.”

“But you turned
against
Alba. That might move her.”

He doubted it.

“And you saved Claes Doorn, who’s fighting the Spaniards. Oh, Carlos! I didn’t tell you about that. Doorn stayed in Antwerp, but Adam brought Mistress Doorn home with him and Kate. Brought her to stay with Mother.”

“What? Why?”

“She helped him organize the attack on our house. And that’s not all. I’m sure Adam’s in love with her. Anyone with eyes can see it, and see that she feels the same about him.”

Good God.
“You mean she’s left her husband?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s with the Brethren fighting Alba.” She smiled at him, excitement in her eyes. “And there’s more. It turns out that Mistress Doorn has quite a lot of money, and she told me she intends to give you much of it for saving her life and her husband’s. Five thousand pounds, she’s promised us! Isn’t that wonderful?”

He was astounded. But it took only a moment for relief to flood in. It
was
wonderful. Five thousand would halve his debts.

“God bless Mistress Doorn,” said Isabel heartily. “I like her very much. She’s a courageous soul. And yet . . .” She shook her head, bewildered. “This thing between her and Adam is rather sad. They’re both married. I don’t quite know what to make of their . . . relationship.”

Neither did Carlos. Adam with Fenella—it was a surprise. They were both fine people who’d suffered, and Carlos hoped they might find some happiness together, if only in private behind closed doors. He suddenly remembered the decision he’d made while sending Isabel off in the duchess’s coach with the Doorns, a decision to one day tell her about his moment with Fenella years ago, tell her just so that everything between them was aboveboard. It had been a meaningless tryst in Edinburgh, born in the crisis of war and long forgotten. Now, though, hearing about Adam, he came to the opposite and firm decision. For everyone’s sake, that bit of the past must stay hidden forever.

“Nico still limps a bit from his broken leg, but the bone has healed well,” Isabel chattered on as they crossed Thames Street, busy with wagons and foot traffic. “And Nell has made a silk sash for you. And Andrew can’t wait to show you the pony Mother has given him, and . . .”

Carlos squeezed her shoulder, eager to hear it all. It was good to be home.

Fenella took the letter from the Rosethorn chambermaid, thanked her, and closed the door. The sun was barely up and Fenella was still in her nightdress. She’d been awake when the maid knocked and about to dress, but the delivery of the letter jolted her as though from sleep with a clanging alarm. It was sealed, but she recognized the outside handwriting. From Claes. She had sent him word of where she was staying. Now, he would want her to come home.

She needed air. She went to the window and opened it. The bedchamber overlooked the Dowager Lady Thornleigh’s rose garden, and the blossoms’ fragrance drifted in around her on the soft summer air. She took a deep breath of it to steady herself. She watched bees drowsing among the roses and iris and gillyflowers.

She sank down on the soft window seat of moss-green velvet and turned the letter over in her hands. She dreaded reading it. The moment she did, this sweet dream she’d been living at Rosethorn House would burst like a bubble of sea foam. She would find herself cast on the rocky shore of reality. Claes was her husband. Her place was with him.

Her gaze drifted across the beautiful room. The cherrywood linenfold paneling. The four-poster bed with its curtains of moss-green brocade. The man-sized chest of carved, gleaming oak. The dressing table with its looking glass crowned with a spray of fresh roses, damask red and white. The silver bowl heaped with lavender and sage. Though she’d been here for only two weeks, she had come to love this house. A safe harbor from the madness she’d been through. A haven of tranquility and peace. How kind old Lady Thornleigh had been. She was Adam’s stepmother, a widow, and Fenella sensed the lady’s deep personal acquaintance with grief. Yet her house was a cheerful place where servants were at ease and where the toy boats and poppet dolls of her grandchildren were as cherished as her costly works of art. Today, the household folk were up early to prepare for the Queen’s visit tonight and Fenella suspected that Lady Thornleigh was, too, supervising it all.

Fenella was nervous about meeting Queen Elizabeth. Lady Thornleigh’s seamstresses had created a gown for Fenella for the grand occasion, a lovely thing of silver satin, the bodice embroidered all over with pink rosebuds, and she felt she looked well in it, but she had no experience with courtly ways and feared that despite the finery she might seem like a fishwife among the lords and ladies. Dozens of guests would be coming. So would Carlos and Isabel Valverde. The Queen had offered to be their newborn baby’s godmother, an extraordinary honor and one that Fenella suspected they owed to Adam. Her Majesty valued Adam’s friendship, and this was his way of thanking Valverde for saving Fenella’s life. She had offered her own thanks to Isabel Valverde in the form of five thousand pounds and Isabel’s delight had touched her. Such a wonderful family. She felt blessed for everything they had done for her.

Adam would be here tonight, too.

She looked down at the letter in her lap. She could no longer put off opening it. She slid her finger under the seal, pried it loose, and unfolded the paper.

She got to her feet. The letter slid to the window seat. Emotions tumbled inside her, a whirl of joy and relief, gratitude and confusion. A hummingbird darted in front of her outside the window, whirring its jeweled wings, hovering. It seemed to look right at her as if to say,
Rejoice! He has set you free!

She
felt
free. Clearly, Claes did, too. For years he had been living as if he had no wife. He had known she was on Sark but had left her there. And after she’d been wounded at Brielle he had left her to go and fight. He
had
to go, she knew that, but she also knew that she did not matter to him the way the rebels’ cause mattered.
Rejoice. He has set you free
.

The hummingbird darted away as suddenly as it had appeared. Fenella felt adrift.
Was
she free? Marriage was a legal bond acknowledged by all of Christendom, and nothing that Claes had said, nor all the love she felt for Adam, could change that fact.
Until death do us part
.

The open air was a welcome respite after the ladies’ cloying perfume in the great hall of Rosethorn House. Perfume made Adam’s eyes itch.

He crossed the terrace in the twilight and headed for the rose garden. Behind him, strains from the Queen’s musicians in the house quivered on the warm air. He was still savoring the effect Fenella had had on his stepmother’s guests. He doubted that any of them had ever seen anything like Fenella, a woman of humble birth so vibrantly independent, so stunning in her confidence, so
herself
. They were whispering about her and him, of course, no way to stop that, and he hated to think the gossip might hurt her. But she’d been magnificent this evening. Before being presented to the Queen, Fenella had quietly told him she was nervous, but he hadn’t noticed it. Hard to notice anything except how beautiful she looked in that silver gown.