The tension in his shoulders eased. Bowing, he said, “Your Majesty has our deepest gratitude.”
“Save your thanks until you know whether we can help you. You may withdraw.”
They thanked her and backed from the room. In the anteroom, a stout, middle-aged man stood as they passed. He headed for the queen’s door, and the usher announced him as Master Withers from the Worshipful Company of Bowyers.
Richard leaned over to Miranda. “Her Majesty is patroness of the Archers’ Company of the Honorable Artillery Company,” he explained. “Since the bowyers make the bows, she takes an interest in their charitable pursuits.”
A queen interested in archery? Who would’ve guessed?
An usher opened the corridor door, and they stepped into the hallway. “We’ll go home and practice,” Richard said. “After what you did at the frost fair, I suspect your control is much improved.”
As they reached the stairs, a cheerful voice behind them called, “Ah, there you are, Richard.”
He shot her a warning look as they turned.
King Charles’s long legs carried him down the corridor at a pace that made his chest-length, curly black wig fly out at the sides and left his less fit courtiers several paces behind. Half a dozen of them trailed him, their faces red with the effort of keeping up.
Miranda swallowed a gasp and curtsied to the floor.
“A good day to Your Majesty,” Richard said, bowing deeply.
“The same to you, my friend, and to you—Mistress Willoughby, is it? The queen told us you were coming today. You are just in time to see our new experiment.” The king didn’t break stride.
Richard smiled at Miranda and tugged her upright. The king’s party turned a corridor. She and the earl joined the small group behind him. They turned another corner and plunged down a staircase.
“We’re headed for the privy garden,” Richard said.
They would be cold, but perhaps the king was too excited to care. For that matter, she didn’t either. She and Richard accompanied the king by his personal invitation, a privilege she’d never thought to have.
A fortnight ago, she would’ve tried to avoid this because she feared she couldn’t fit in. Now, thanks to Richard and his grandmother, she had learned to move through these circles as though she belonged. This day would be another memory to cherish. If she remembered anything of this once they fixed the timeline.
“What experiment is this, Your Majesty?” Richard asked.
“For a more powerful telescope. Has to do with the size of the mirrors, or so we are told. Very promising.” The king smiled in anticipation.
“How marvelous,” Miranda whispered to Richard.
“The king loves such things,” he said as they burst into the winter sunshine. “He has a laboratory in his private apartments.”
The walled garden spread south toward Westminster, filling the space between the street, which was simply called The Street, and the Thames with wide, square plots of grass. They were brown now, but each held a statue. Men, women, children, birds, and even monsters graced the various squares.
The path before them led to a large pillar with odd-looking, circular inserts at the corners. As they walked past it, she noticed that there were four such faces, as well as one each facing north, south, east, and west.
“Sundial,” Richard murmured. At her blank look, he added, “A way to tell the hour using the sun.”
“How clever!”
“Yes. The king loves it.”
Miranda had never seen a sundial. If only she could examine it further, but the king’s rapid pace gave her no chance. That was all right, though, with so much to look at.
She glanced up at the palace walls. At the corridor window above the garden, near the banqueting house, George Mainwaring stood glaring down at them. He would hurt Richard if he could.
Richard didn’t seem to notice, but Miranda glared back before moving closer to the earl.
Alas that she could do little to protect him from George’s treachery. Richard deserved better from a kinsman. He was loyal, brave, and selfless.
No wonder she loved him.
Stunned, she stared across the garden and took a shuddering breath.
“Are you cold?” Richard asked, shifting so that his body blocked the wind from the river.
“I’m all right,” she managed.
She’d felt this for days, but she’d told herself it was fondness or gratitude or friendship. Anything but what it was. But now, standing here beside him with his cousin looking so menacingly at him, she couldn’t deny her feelings.
Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about them. Nothing save enjoying what time she had with him. That time was fleeting anyway, and fixing the timeline might mean they didn’t even remember each other.
As though sensing her distress, he clasped her hand. The folds of their cloaks concealed the grip, so no one would notice, but the contact and the affection that came with it were a comfort.
The king’s words flowed around her like the babble of a distant brook. She couldn’t love Richard. Not a man who stood so far above her. A man whose blood carried a curse.
But she did.
“I don’t know which would be worse,” Richard said to Cabot that evening, “plague or a sickness such as the one ripping through the livestock.” The two men waited for Jeremy in a narrow alley south of the old artillery ground in Spitalfields.
“I don’t want the opportunity to know.” Cabot glanced at the guarded doorway Jeremy had entered.
“Nor do I,” Richard told him, “but they wouldn’t have sent to the archbishop for a mere ague.”
He and Cabot paced back and forth to stay warm. This situation brought to mind the plague vision of Miranda’s that Grandmère had described to him. Alas that it hadn’t been more detailed.
“Horrible as plague is,” Richard said, “it would be more manageable than the mysterious ailment killing livestock.”
“True enough,” Cabot muttered.
The Gifted could sometimes cure early cases of plague. They couldn’t cure whatever ailed the animals because they couldn’t identify it.
If that spread to people ...
It was bad enough to have people disappearing, he thought with a pang of loss for Kit, to have them not even remembered by anyone unGifted who loved them. Now this.
Word had reached Lambeth Palace this afternoon. The archbishop had sent Jeremy, who was dining with Richard and Cabot at a tavern near Lambeth Palace when word reached him, to investigate.
Cabot blew out an explosive breath. “What the devil’s keeping Jeremy?”
Richard smiled. “Jeremy’s patient. Unlike either of us. He’ll take his time.”
No one had yet painted the red X denoting plague on the door of the afflicted house, despite the guard outside. Only invoking the archbishop’s authority had gained Jeremy admittance.
“We’ll need healers,” Richard said quietly, stamping his feet against the chill. “As with the outbreak in ’sixty-five.”
The Gifted healers had saved many, but even their strength had limits. More than sixty-eight thousand people had died despite Gifted healers who worked themselves into exhaustion.
Richard paced along the alley. “I need to go, Cabot, to Croyland. Whatever the answer to this time problem, it doesn’t lie in London.”
“You trust her vision that much, then?”
“Absolutely,” Richard said, surprised to find that he meant it.
“No word from the queen?” Cabot asked.
“Not so far.” Richard stared down the alleyway. “In truth, I’m tempted not to wait for Her Majesty’s response. I feel as though time is slipping away and we must act soon or else fail.”
“Yet you’re taking Miranda. Didn’t you say traveling by coach makes her ill?”
Richard nodded. “She needs Grandmère’s posset to endure any long journey. But Wyndon has taken an interest in her, and she’s safer with me than here with Grandmère. I don’t trust the house
wards to keep Wyndon out if he’s truly determined. Besides, I don’t want to risk her having another significant dream in my absence.”
Nor did he want to leave her for days. Parting would come soon enough.
“After what she did at the frost fair,” Richard mused, “I thought her control had improved. Then the ritual with the water carried it to new levels.” Ones that were embarrassing for them both. “She now can light or snuff candles and has made a good start at learning defensive magic. While she can’t yet control a visionary scrying, she can handle a basic one.”
After a moment, Cabot said, “Have you thought what to do about her when you conclude this quest?”
“She told Grandmère she likes to sew. I thought I might set her up with her own shop somewhere—perhaps in Havelock, if Kit knew of a place.”
If they set history to rights, Kit would return, but Miranda would likely disappear into a past where she and Richard had never met. Hating the idea, he forced his voice level. “A woman alone would be safer in a village than in a place like London or Dover.”
“So she would.” Looking up at the cloudy sky, Cabot noted, “Of course, the only true security for a woman lies in marriage.”
Richard’s gut tightened, but he kept his voice even. A few more exchanges, and he could broach the subject his conscience had been spurring him to raise. “Perhaps she’ll meet someone once she finds a home.”
Cabot shook his head. “Unlikely, though I would hope she might. She’s too refined.”
Richard couldn’t argue with that. Her educated speech and her stubborn ways and her personal fastidiousness would render most of the men she would likely meet in a small village unappealing to her. Unless, of course, she grew lonely enough to settle for one of them.
After a moment, Cabot said, “You obviously care for her. Why don’t you marry her?”
“You know why.” It was just like Cabot to twist a plan that way. “And before you remind me what Kit said, I assure you I haven’t forgotten, but I’ve a duty to her as well as to the folk on my lands.” And the doomed heirs he’d resolved not to sire.
Richard gazed at the narrow doorway across the alley without seeing it. Here was the chance he’d sought, an opportunity to suggest that Cabot marry Miranda. There was no one Richard would trust with her more. Yet the words stuck in his throat.
Jeremy stepped out into the moonlight, his presence a welcome excuse to delay the unhappy topic. Jeremy spoke quietly to the guard, who nodded.
Turning to Richard and Cabot, Jeremy shrugged. “This is as Miranda foresaw, but it’s not plague.”
They walked a little way down the street. “It looks like plague,” he continued, “with swelling and red blotches in the groin and armpits. The stench of the afflicted person’s breath is similar, but it has a different feel to it.”
“What do you mean?” Richard asked.
“When I touch someone afflicted with plague,” Jeremy said, “I know that’s what it is. You would, too, if you’d spent a lot of time on healing. I recognize it. This isn’t it.”
They walked several paces in silence. The streets were always less crowded after dark, but now, with only a few people scurrying about their business, they seemed eerily empty.
Jeremy said, “I don’t know what’s sickening people. I pray it’s not a reaction to unnatural forces in the world, such as the animals have had.”
He shoved his hair out of his face and sighed. “I only know what isn’t doing it, and I wasn’t able to give that man much ease, perhaps because I can’t stop whatever’s making him ill. Meanwhile, I must think of something to tell the archbishop.”
Richard didn’t envy him. Archbishop Sheldon was no one’s fool, and dealing with unGifted people about such matters posed delicate questions of truth. “I’ll go home, then,” Richard said, “and send word to Lucius, though I won’t wait for another infernal, tedious debate in the Council. Do you have a recommendation?”
“Considering how quickly this seems to be spreading—five houses on this street already, with two dead—and how fast the animals died ... ” Jeremy hesitated. “Fix the blasted timeline, or we’ll have a situation that makes the plague of ’65 look like a small inconvenience.”
Chapter 20
William sauntered into the Wyndon House library. “I’ve news, Father.”
“Did you arrange for plague relief, as I instructed you? We must keep up appearances while we await the final changes.” Henry set his book, the Earl of Rochester’s poems, on the table beside his chair.
The future he intended to carve for England was worth a few deaths, but aid would convince the other Gifted to continue ignoring Hawkstowe’s suspicions. “Once the changes overtake the present, all should be well, but we must appear concerned until then.”
“Of course I made the contributions. Told Lucius I’d volunteer for the Conclave’s healers, though I’m not that good at it. Then I had coffee with George Mainwaring.”
Grinning, William plopped into a chair. “George bribed a kitchen maid he used to bed. With money I gave him. A royal messenger came to Hawkstowe House this morning. Not an hour later, Hawkstowe and the girl set out in his carriage with a maid and baggage.”
Henry acknowledged the maneuver with a nod. “That’s reliable, then. They’re away from their friends. Vulnerable.”
“Are you going after them?”
“Of course. Where did they go?”
“Lincolnshire,” William said. “Crow-something.”
Croyland, it must be. Perfect. That was far enough from London to make travel between the two slow and torturous, especially with the roads so battered and mired from the weather.
Henry smiled. “Every man has his weakness, my son. Hawkstowe’s is that he cares.”
If Henry could isolate the wench, he could force her to tell him whatever she knew. She was stubborn about questions, but perhaps she could be tricked into revelations.
He could also eliminate her if need be. Nothing could stand in the way of the changes now rolling forward. If the girl had Seen some way to undo them, she had to die.
Chapter 21
Please, Miranda thought, watching the priest, let this man have what we need. Though the day was fading, she and Richard had come directly here upon reaching Croyland, pausing only to take rooms at the inn.
Father Gregory read the queen’s brief message slowly. He looked to be in his mid-forties, with gray hair at his temples and strands of gray in his tidy, brown beard. Deep lines of care marked his face and fanned from the corners of his eyes. Considering the increasing persecution of Catholics, Miranda supposed the priest had ample worries to age a man early, even without the food shortages and plague-like disease spreading in London.
Richard’s expression showed only polite interest, but she knew how much this meant to him.
The cottage’s plank floors and tiny hearth fire provided little comfort to offset those cares. The room bore no ornamentation except a dark wooden crucifix on the wall by the hearth. Hung with worn, brown wool curtains, the poorly leaded windows provided little defense against the drafts.
While their host examined the royal seal, Miranda resisted the urge to slide her chair closer to the fire. Her fur muff’s comfort felt decadent in such barren surroundings.
Father Gregory’s brown eyes rose, studying them. “An impressive recommendation.” He folded the paper and handed it to Richard, who slipped it into his coat pocket. “What help do you seek, my lord?”
“Have you heard, Father, of the Croyland Chronicle?”
“I can’t say that I have. I assume there’s some connection with the old monastery here?”
“For several hundred years, the Croyland monks kept a record of the events in the realm. It may hold information important to my family. I hope someone may have kept a copy when the monastery was dissolved. Someone who might have entrusted it to a Catholic family here in Croyland.”
“You want my help in finding that copy, if it exists.”
/> Richard nodded. “Your parishioners have no reason to trust me, a nobleman not of their faith. Without your help, I cannot hope that they would disclose anything to me. Even locating them is a problem. Asking everyone I meet who his Catholic neighbors are would hardly earn me anyone’s trust.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” The priest shrugged. “I’ll ask about the book, but I think I would know if anyone in my parish had such a thing. It would be greatly treasured.”
“We appreciate whatever help you can give us, Father, even if it leads to naught.”
“It well may. My inquiries will take a few days. How can I reach you, milord, mistress?”
Richard rose. Miranda and their host also stood.
“We’re at the Royal Oak in the High Street. Ask for Richard Mainwaring.” When the priest raised his eyebrows, Richard explained, “I consider this business private. People tend to pay attention to Lord Anybody, but no one will give an untitled gentleman a second glance.”
“Very well, my lord. I hope to have news for you soon, but I must again caution you not to hope for much.”
With a wry smile, Richard said, “Nor do I, Father, but I cannot overlook any possibility.”
Miranda dropped the priest a curtsey. “Good day, Father.”
The priest’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t comment. Still, he deserved that mark of respect, the only one she could offer.
Richard gestured for her to precede him. When they reached the door, he paused. “For the poor box, with our thanks for your help.” He drew a fat purse from his coat pocket and set it on the table by the door.
A flush of gratitude stained the priest’s thin cheeks. “Thank you for that, milord. Our parish has many needs.”
“In the current political climate, I imagine so, but not everyone agrees with the extremists in Parliament. I’m glad to be of help.” He bowed and ushered Miranda out.
As the door closed, she heard coins clink. Softly, she said, “That was well done of you, Richard.”
“’Tis only fair. I put enough gold in that purse to support a small household for a year. It won’t make up for jobs lost to the Test Act, but it will feed a few people.”
The Herald of Day Page 24
