Birthright

by David Hingley

  She had ridden for twenty minutes when a large animal stopped on the side of the trail ahead, examining the approaching horse. As she drew closer she recognised the black creature from its cousins in the gambling pits of Southwark. But this was no captured beast kept in cruel chains. It was a wild bear, free to roam the unspoiled island and hunt. She felt a frisson of fear as she passed by, but it made no attempt to attack, and when she looked back it had vanished into the woods.

  She slowed the horse to listen for sounds of pursuit. A great chirping now filled the air, strange insects singing their crepuscular chorus, but she heard no horses’ hooves, no soldiers shouting to each other as they rode. She was about to continue when she saw a human face peering from behind a tree. The semi-darkness made it impossible to make out features, but it was clearly watching her. Panicked, she hurried on. A few yards down, the light of a fire illuminated a black horse nuzzling the ground for fallen snacks. She rode past as quietly as she could, then sped on ever swifter into the fast-approaching night.

  She had not gone much further when a slender figure stepped out from the undergrowth in front. There was nothing she could do to prevent herself from being seen, so she reined in the horse and trotted up, hoping she would be able to pass. But the figure, a dark-skinned woman wearing nothing but a skirt, seemed as startled as she was. A rustling in the bushes churned Mercia’s stomach, but it was only two small children darting from the underbrush to join the woman on the path.

  The bemused trio stared up at Mercia on her panting horse. Probably wondering what I must be doing here, she thought, equally fascinated by them and especially by the woman’s immodesty. It was the first time she had seen one of the indigenous people. Although she knew they traded with the Dutch, none had been in New Amsterdam during the invasion, perhaps waiting to see how events would unfold.

  The woman pointed north. ‘Haarlem?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Mercia in surprise, but the woman frowned, so she tried Dutch instead. ‘Ja.’

  The woman smiled. ‘Niet ver.’ Not far. To her amusement Mercia understood, thinking it extraordinary she could communicate with this woman, both using an unfamiliar tongue.

  ‘Dank U,’ she said, and she carried on her way.

  Not five minutes later she came to a fork, the trail splitting either side of a smooth rocky outcrop. The wider road continued left into darkness, but a smaller path went right. Calculating how long and how fast she had ridden, she guessed she must have travelled around eight or ten miles, surely distance enough to Haarlem based on Morley’s chart, and the Indian woman had said the village was close. The secondary path was also brighter, so she took it, hoping it would at least lead out of the forest to where she could better see where she was heading.

  Very soon it appeared her choice was correct. The night now on her, the trees began to thin until at the forest’s edge she came to a flat expanse of cleared land sloping to a broad watercourse on the right, undoubtedly the eastern river between Manhattan and Long Island. To the left, the forest stretched on for miles further. In the near distance, two black rows of houses were merging into the night, evidently the settlement of Haarlem, while closer to hand, pinpoints of light drew her gaze to a larger edifice. Her breathing quickened as she realised this must be the plantation house.

  She stopped. Looking out between the trees, she could see two flickering lights continuously circuiting the house atop a defensive palisade, presumably torches carried by two guards. But Mercia herself was shrouded in darkness, and she was wearing black clothing. If she was stealthy there was a good possibility she would remain undetected. It was not much of a defence, but it was the best she had.

  She dismounted, tying the horse to a tree somewhat away from the path. She still had Sir Bernard’s pistol but without bullets it was useless, so she left it in the saddlebag, worried the guards might shoot if they spotted her wielding a gun. She patted the horse’s head and set out on foot, keeping low and quick, marvelling that the plantation grounds could seem larger than the town of New York itself. There, hundreds of people had come together to forge a mercantile life at the mouth of Hudson’s River, while here, the wealth of one man had carved an exclusive territory on the island’s northern shores.

  She crouched as she approached, watching the guards, assessing their routine. There was a blind spot lasting roughly four seconds when the entrance gate through the palisade was out of view of either, and it appeared to be open. She stole as close as she dared, waited for her chance, then ran.

  She made it to the gate and paused a few moments, hardly daring to breathe. Under cover of a small grove of trees that must have been left in place when the forest was cleared, she edged towards the house. A final open stretch, her heart pounding wildly, and she was there. She sidled along the wall until she came to a door, but it was locked. She moved on, pressing her body as tightly as she could against the bushes surrounding the residence, searching for another. She caught her breath as she found she could pull the next one open.

  Very slowly, she tugged the door just wide enough to peer through. The room was lit, but nobody was inside. She eased the door open and stepped over the threshold, leaving it slightly ajar in case she needed to make her escape. This was the second house she had broken into this year, but unlike Halescott Manor, which she knew inside out, the Haarlem plantation house was totally unfamiliar.

  She was standing in a large back room. Candles were burning in wall sconces and a fireplace was blazing, the flames casting a sedate glow over a fine chair drawn up to its warmth. An embroidery pattern was lying discarded on an adjacent table, needle and thread alongside. Whoever had been using the room was absent for now, but they could return at any minute.

  The room’s only internal door sat half-open. It was dark beyond, so she rummaged in various drawers until she found a selection of candles, lighting one at the fire and wedging it into a holder. She squeezed through the gap, her dress rustling against the door jamb, but the passage beyond was empty of people, and she could hear no sounds from elsewhere in the house. She tiptoed down the corridor, encircled by the candle’s light. Otherwise the darkness was complete. At each step she battled her overwhelming instinct to turn around and leave.

  She reached the foot of a large, twisting staircase opposite the main front door. The hall seemed vast, its dark recesses hiding unknown threats. Gripping the candle holder, she waved the light around the space. Something on the landing above caught her eye. Thinking to ascend, she had one foot on the staircase when a dog sprang out. She stared in terror as it advanced, but it merely licked her hands. She breathed out. Fortunately, this was no guard dog.

  She began to climb the stairs. Each tiny creak raised the tension running through her body, but if anyone heard they must have thought she was a legitimate resident, not some foreign interloper determined to uncover dangerous secrets. She reached the top, releasing the bannister she had been clinging onto hard.

  A series of rooms gave off the landing, but she stopped up short as she beheld the magnificent sight that had grabbed her attention. It was positioned perfectly so that anyone who climbed the stairs could not fail to be impressed. It was a painting, and it was huge, a gargantuan scene of the canals of Amsterdam. The signature in the corner testified to its creator: the great Dutch master Rembrandt. The painting was not part of the Oxford Section, but seeing its splendour gave her hope.

  She listened at one of the doors. Hearing nothing, she released the iron latch and pushed. The light from the candle illuminated an opulent room dominated by a grand four-poster bed, the wooden panels on the headboard and base teeming with beautiful carvings of native wildlife – beavers, cranes, bears. On the wall beside the bed, the candlelight fell on another painting, this one a still life of a bowl of fruit, but again, this was not from the Oxford Section. She ran the light across the walls to find two more paintings, but they were two more disappointments.

  She crept next door, another bedroom that was as empty of sleepers as it was
of the Titians and Van Dycks of the King’s lost collection. The next room, the night air fluttering the thin elegance of half-drawn curtains at an open window, a delicate writing desk strewn with perfumed stationery beneath, exactly the same. Her uneasiness growing, she descended to the hall, the candlelight reflecting off two huge porphyry vases and the magnificent mosaic pattern of a beautiful marble tabletop. Yet on the wall beside the staircase, where she would expect a man of van Arnhem’s status to show off the greatest part of his wealth, slumped an uninspiring Flemish tapestry.

  She progressed from the hallway to a hexagonal salon. The six walls were covered with paintings; for a moment excitement bloomed, but as she roved the candlelight across them, all she revealed was a succession of individual portraits. From the list the King had compiled, she knew the only such pictures in the Oxford Section were a pair of his father, Charles I, and his mother, Henrietta Maria, but neither were represented here.

  Mercia stood dejected in the middle of the room. Had she come all this way for nothing? The Oxford Section was supposed to be in the plantation house. Pietersen had admitted it. But it did not seem to be here at all.

  A popping from behind a door in the corner rallied her from her gloom. It was slightly ajar, a quivering orange light playing through the gaps around the frame. She shuffled towards it, holding her breath. The wood felt warm. There must be a lit fire within, the second she had come across. So where were all the people?

  Very carefully, she leant on the door, taking a full thirty seconds to ease it half-open. She peered through to see a red-walled study that was overflowing with leather-bound volumes and rolled-up charts, all crammed into mahogany shelves. But for once these were insignificant to her as she looked amazed on the grandest object in the room, a canvas above the fireplace that dominated all else.

  It was a painting of a family, a man and his wife with their six children, the eldest around ten years of age, the youngest a newborn in his mother’s arms. The man stood proudly around his brood, who were looking at the viewer with an innocence that belied their status. For this was no ordinary family. It was the family of Charles I, the proud father, and of Charles II, the ten-year-old boy. With a leap of her heart Mercia realised this was the very painting from the Oxford Section the King coveted above all.

  Relief surged through her as all her hope returned. Forgetting the lit fire she stepped through into the study, eager to look more closely on her prize. After all she had suffered, here it was, right before her. For some reason it was out of its frame. Then a crinkling sound, as of clothing being smoothed, forced her attention to a fireside armchair. Facing the other way, a head of grey hair was resting on its embroidered back. She began to retreat, but then a voice from the armchair spoke.

  ‘Stay, Mercia. There are matters we need to discuss.’

  She stopped. She knew the voice. She knew it well. She had known it since she was a girl, had grieved with it in the Tower, had listened to it across the ocean all this way. In the end she was not surprised, for little could surprise her now.

  The woman stood up and turned to face her.

  It was Lady Markstone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  ‘Such a beautiful family.’ Lady Markstone swept her gloved hand over the royal painting. ‘The old King looks so happy there. But then this was done before the war, and now four of those sorry children are dead, struck down by sickness or else melancholy.’ She looked keenly at Mercia. ‘Dread reckoning, perhaps, for the innocents he sent to die for his base cause.’

  Mercia closed her eyes. ‘Like Robert.’

  ‘Like Robert. My eldest son. He would have been nearly forty now, had that man not stolen him from me in his futile conflicts.’ She thrust her finger at the depiction of Charles I. ‘Instead he died when he was just eighteen. The King took him from me, so I took something of his back.’

  Mercia scanned the room, suddenly panicked. ‘What of my son? I sent Daniel to Long Island with you. Where is he?’

  ‘Do not worry, your darling child is safe. I took him back to the ship. Captain Morley is teaching him knots.’

  She breathed out. ‘Then you still have some compassion, at least. I cannot say the same for Sir Bernard.’

  Lady Markstone stared at the flames, shadows dancing in the folds of her green silk dress. ‘So you know.’

  ‘I must admit, I am surprised. I did not think you could stand each other.’

  ‘It was my husband and I to begin with.’ Lady Markstone’s eyes lit up in a furious passion. ‘When Robert died at Marston Moor, I went mad with grief. I spent years trying to understand why God had taken him from me, why He had allowed him to die on that terrible field of war. Then He spoke to me, told me my fortitude would be rewarded, if I would only wait.’

  Mercia glanced at the painting. ‘You sold these for profit, Lady Markstone. There is not much of heaven in that.’

  The elder woman pivoted her head, looking at Mercia as though surprised she was there. ‘For Edward it was about profit. For me, it was a divine revenge. God kept the paintings at Oxford until the moment was right, then He used Cromwell to deliver them to us. Edward devised the plan to acquire them, knowing he would be charged with investigating their loss. The money we made selling them we used to support our other son. Leonard became a wealthy and respected man. Robert’s death was no longer in vain.’

  ‘And the other deaths, Lady Markstone?’ Mercia sidled away, brushing against the study’s grand desk. ‘The guards escorting the paintings to London? All that has happened since?’

  Lady Markstone blinked. ‘It was on North’s conscience how he obtained the paintings. That had naught to do with Edward or me. It all happened according to God’s intent.’ She looked up. ‘Surely you see that? It was His recompense to me for losing my boy.’

  ‘I lost family in the war.’ Mercia’s voice was expressionless. ‘I coped.’

  ‘But your mother did not. She gave in, even as we strove to survive, you and I.’ Lady Markstone stepped closer, holding out her hands. ‘Robert’s death had a purpose, to help Leonard, as your brother’s had a purpose, to help you. It has made you the determined woman you are.’ She smiled. ‘I admire you, Mercia. You have come so far, just to find me out.’

  The presumptive words angered her. ‘And now I have, will you let Sir Bernard have his murderous way?’ Images of her uncle and Pietersen flashed into her mind, of Nathan riding from the wall. ‘He is a monster.’

  ‘No, child. Merely scarred by the war, as are we all.’ Unconsciously, Lady Markstone scratched at her forearm. ‘You see Bernard has simply been protecting me. When he returned from his exile, we formed a … friendship. His wife had died of a wasting illness, and my husband, well, I have told you how he was abusive. Bernard and I became close.’

  ‘Oh, very good.’ Mercia realised the truth. ‘You were lovers.’

  Lady Markstone inclined her head. ‘We wanted to marry, but Edward still lived, and you know a divorce is impossible. So Bernard poisoned him, and when the arsenic was found, as we knew it would be, I took the blame, protesting he had died of a disease of the bowel. Nobody could prove the charge of murder. Bernard was able to use his influence to obtain the sentence I indeed longed for. We hoped to sail to New England to live out our lives and be married there, far from the prying eyes of home.’

  ‘Ingenious.’ Mercia set her fingertips on the gnarled desk. ‘But while you were plotting your future, James North returned.’

  Lady Markstone sighed. ‘North was always difficult. When he beat that boy before the battle at Worcester, your father should have had him hanged. But with the Oxford Section about to be sent to London, Edward realised he could use him instead. He visited him while he was in chains and offered him an alternative. He could help us acquire the paintings and leave the country with a fine reward, or he could die.’

  ‘What a choice.’

  ‘An easy one. Edward persuaded Rowland to assign North to the escort that was to accompany the Section. Afterw
ards he passed him off as one of the Scottish prisoners who were captured at Worcester and he was deported with the rest to New England. We sold the paintings to van Arnhem; then, years later, when he moved here to set up this little fiefdom, he needed a local man to help his agent smuggle in the paintings. He sent Pietersen ahead to hire North, as we ourselves suggested.’ She smiled. ‘Everything had to be a secret with van Arnhem. He never did want anyone to know he had the Section. But then neither did we.’

  ‘And when North was done with his task, he stayed here,’ mused Mercia.

  Lady Markstone scoffed. ‘Hardly surprising. No doubt the piety of the New England folk was too restrictive for him. This town would have been much better suited to his coarse tastes.’

  ‘Until he came back to England.’ Mercia frowned. ‘Were you not in the Tower by then?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lady Markstone was bitter. ‘And Edward was dead, so he found out Leonard instead. North threatened to go to the King if he did not give him money.’ A sadness descended on her face. ‘Leonard visited me in the Tower, in a panic. He never knew where his money had come from until then. You must see, Mercia, there was no other solution. At first Leonard refused, but then he did it.’ She looked at her as if beseeching her forgiveness. ‘He has not spoken to me since.’

  ‘You got your son to kill North?’ Mercia screwed up her face, disgusted.

  ‘It weighed heavily on him. The price I pay is he will never forgive me. But it is an acceptable price, if his reputation remains intact.’

  ‘And my father’s death?’ Mercia stepped forward, gripping the back of the armchair. ‘Was that an acceptable price? Do not deny it, Lady Markstone. Sir Bernard has admitted why he had him killed.’