“These,” Barnes announced, “are the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards. I recommend we get them out of here as quickly as possible, before there is serious trouble.”
“As I suspected,” said the cavalier, “it is a kind of blackmail. What is it you want?”
“I want you to take this opportunity to be silent, monsieur, and to bide here for a time, so that I may go within and parley with their leaders, and convince them that it is in their best interests to depart immediately and without pillaging.”
The cavalier, after another look at the musketeers, and at another such formation that had appeared on the road nearby, accepted those terms with a nod. Barnes nudged his nag to the gate, which was opened for him. He dismounted and crunched down the gravel path into the château.
Five minutes later, he was back. “Monsieur, they will leave,” he announced. Which had been obvious anyway, for as soon as he had entered the house the men had ceased digging, and begun to gather their things, and to form up in the garden by platoons.
“There is a complication,” Barnes added.
The cavalier rolled his eyes, sighed, and spat. “What is the complication, monsieur?”
“One of my men came across something in the house that, I regret to inform you, is not the rightful property of Count Sheerness. We are taking the item in question with us.”
“So, monsieur, it is as I knew all along. You are thieves. What is this prize, I wonder? The plate? No—the Titian! I suspected you had an eye for art, monsieur. It’s the Titian, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary, monsieur. It is a woman. An Englishwoman.”
“Oh no, the Englishwoman stays here!”
“No, monsieur. She goes. She goes with her husband.”
“Her husband!?”
IT HAD BEEN UPWARDS OF thirty years since Bob Shaftoe had shinnied up a drainpipe to break into the home of a rich man. But the women of the household had, like birds, flown upwards by instinct, and availed themselves of every stair that presented itself to them, until they nested in an attic. An eyebrow window protruded from the roof, and worried faces flashed in it. Bob, rather than see doors smashed down and the house torn apart, ascended to that roof, belly-crawled up the roof-tiles, kicked out the window, somersaulted to the floor, and parried a rush and a thrust from some kitchen-wench who had thought to snatch up a butcher-knife before abandoning her post. He got this one by the wrist, spun her around into a hammerlock, pried the knife from her grip, and held her as a shield before him, in case any of the four other women in this attic had like intentions. She smelled of carrots and thyme. She shouted something in French that he was sure meant, “Run away!” but not a one of them moved. The booming on the attic-door proved they had no route of escape that way.
They looked at him. Their faces were turned to the light pouring in through the wrecked window. One was a crone, two were matrons, too old and stout to be Abigail. One was the right age, and shape, and coloration. His heart jumped and stumbled. It wasn’t her. “Damn it!” he said, “do not be afraid, you’ll not be touched. I seek Miss Abigail Frome.”
Four pairs of eyes shifted slightly from Bob’s face to that of the woman he was holding.
Then her entire weight was pressing him back, and he had to let go her wrist to catch her. In his life he had learned a few things about unarmed combat, including a trick or two for escaping from a hammerlock. This, though, was a new one: faint dead away into your captor’s arms.
SHE CAME AROUND THREE MINUTES later, diagonal on a bed one storey below. Bob bobbed in and out of her field of view. He’d draw near to count her freckles, then would remember that a life of military service had made him a frightful thing to look upon, and so, to spare Abigail’s tender eyes, he would withdraw, and make a circuit of the room’s windows, inspecting the trench-work of the soldiers below. Some of them were doing it a little bit wrong. He mastered the urge to fling up a sash and bawl at them. He flicked his eyes up to scour the horizon for vengeful French Horse-regiments. When Abigail reached up to rub her nose, he kept an eye on her, in case she had secreted on her person any more cutlery. But he need not have bothered. This was not a tempestuous assassin he was looking at. She was a schoolgirl from a small town in Somerset, of a sweet and level disposition, but inclined to be a bit daft about practical matters, which was how Bob had met her in the first place, and how he had lost his heart to her. To rush at him with a knife, as she had just done, was not typical of her character, but it was a fair sample of the less than practical side of her nature, which Bob, who had nothing but practical in his makeup, needed and wanted. He had seen this, eleven years ago, in the time it had taken his heart to skip three beats. And in a sort of miracle—the only miracle that Bob had ever been party to—this girl had seen in him what she wanted. Wanted, both in the sense that meant was lacking, and the sense that meant desired.
Beds of the time had a lot of pillows, as it was the practice to sleep half-sitting up. Abigail had been flung down flat by Bob, but now pushed herself up against the pillows so that she could eye him pacing about the room.
“Bloody hell!” were his first tender words to her. “There is no time! I know you remember me, or you would not have fainted.”
She was still pale, and not inclined to move more than she had to, but a smile came on her face, giving her the placid look of a Virgin Mary in a painting. “Even if I had it in me to forget you, my lords Upnor and Sheerness would have made it impossible. It was strange how oft they felt moved to relate the story of how you stood on the bridge and challenged Upnor on my behalf.”
“Oh, that was ignominious.”
“True, they told the tale to make fun of you; but to me ’twas a love-story I never tired of hearing.”
“Still, ignominious. As was my second meeting with Upnor, which you might not have heard about. Thank god Teague happened along with his stick! But we have no time for this. Oh, bloody hell, here he comes!”
“Who!?” cried Abigail.
“Didn’t mean to alarm you, Miss. It is not Monsieur le comte. It’s Colonel Barnes. He approaches. Do you mark his peg-leg beating time on the stairs? We must get out of this place.”
Bob moved toward the door of the bedchamber. Abigail watched with a wrinkled brow, not knowing whether it was Bob’s intention to flee; to barricade it; or to welcome the Colonel. But instead some detail of it caught Bob’s notice. He reached out and touched—caressed—the upper hinge: two straps of forged iron, one fixed to the door, the other to the post, joined by a short rod of iron about as thick as his little finger. “Quickly then: a few moments in Taunton market-square, eleven years ago, helping you with that silly banner, when the wind had gusted, and blown it down—you remember? Those moments are to my life what this hinge-pin is in the case of the door; which is to say that all pivoted, and pivots, about it; it is what I am about, as it were, and at the same time, it holds all together. Take it away—” And here Bob, not trusting his tongue, on an impulse drew a knife from his belt, shoved it under the mushroom-shaped head of the pin, and popped it loose. Lifting the door up with one hand, he jerked the pin up and out with the other; then he let go. The pin clanged to the floor. The door fell askew and cracked, and would not move properly any more, but hung sadly askew and wobbled.
“We’ve another moment now, unfortunately no longer than the first. What’s it to be, Abigail?”
“What do you mean exactly?”
Barnes stepped carefully into the room, eyeing the broken door. He gave Bob a Significant Look; then, remembering his manners, turned smartly toward Abigail and bowed. “Miss Frome! Sergeant Shaftoe has extolled your beauty so many times I have grown bored of him; seeing you in the flesh, I understand, and repent, and shall never again yawn and drum my fingers on the table, when the topic arises, but join in chorus with Sergant Bob.”
“Thank—” Abigail began, but Barnes had already moved on.
“Have you asked her yet?”
“No, he hasn’t,” Abigail said, for Bob
was dumbstruck.
“Drop,” said Barnes, “ask.”
Bob smashed down on to his knees. “Will—”
“Yes.”
“Abigail Frome will you take—” began Barnes.
“I do.”
“Robert Shaf—”
“I do.”
“—nounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride—later. Let’s get the bloody hell out of here!” said Colonel Barnes, and fled the room; for he phant’sied he’d spied something through the window.
“Fetch me that hinge-pin, husband,” Abigail said, “in lieu of a ring.”
SEVERAL PLATOONS OF MUSKETEERS were already formed up anyway in the forecourt of the house, and so it did not impose any significant further delay for them to line up on both sides of the path and form an arch of bayonets for Mr. and Mrs. Shaftoe to run through. It was too early for spring flowers, but some private had the presence of mind to hack a branch from a budding cherry-tree and slap it into Abigail’s arms. A white horse was pillaged from the stables and bestowed on the newlyweds as a wedding-present. Members of the household staff looked on through windows, and cooed and waved tea-towels. The French musketeers who were supposed to be guarding the place, and who had been disarmed, and herded into a dry fountain, wept for joy and blew their noses. Even the cavalier who had been giving Barnes such a hard time could only look the other way, shake his head, and blink. He was indignant to have been made the small-minded villain in this story, and wished he could have spoken more to Barnes, and let him know that, if he had only been made aware of the nature of the errand, he might have served Venus instead of Mars.
Barnes and the Shaftoes, distributed between two horses, inspected the troops a last time.
“You have done well by your Sergeant to-day,” Barnes announced, “and repaid a small portion of that debt you owe him for having kept you alive through so many battles. Now, back to training! Today’s exercise is called ‘melt away into the countryside.’ It has already commenced, and you are already doing a miserable job of it, being bunched together in plain view!”
Private soldiers began to break ranks and vault walls. A senior sergeant approached Barnes, and lodged a protest: “There’s no countryside to melt into, sir! We’ve got one foot in bloody France, all the trees are cut down, we are thirty miles behind enemy lines—”
“That is what makes it such a superlative training exercise! If we were in bloody Sherwood Forest, it’d be easy, wouldn’t it? Here is a suggestion: As long as you keep your gob shut, they’ll assume you are starveling deserters from the French Army! Now, get you all gone. I shall see you all back at quarters in a few days. I must convey Mr. and Mrs. Shaftoe to the sea-coast, that they may go to London and set up housekeeping. You shall all be welcome at their house!”
Abigail here for the first time looked a little less than radiant. But the joy came back into her face again as those Black Torrent Guards who had not yet melted away into the countryside broke into cheers. Bob got the white horse moving, and trotted round the circuit of the gardens, accepting in turn the cheers of various small mobs of soldiers, of the French maids in the windows, and the musketeers in the fountain; and then it was through the gate and out on to the road. Following Barnes—who was halfway to the western horizon already—they took off hell-for-leather. Abigail, straddling the horse’s croup, pressed her cheek into the hollow between Bob’s shoulder-blades, wrapped her arms about his waist, and clasped her hands together. Bob, feeling a hard thing jammed into his belly, looked down to see Abigail’s fingers interlocked about the hinge-pin.
Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover
AUGUST 1697
“FRANCE WILL SHED all of the lands she has conquered since 1678—except for Strasbourg, which Louis seems to have conceived a great liking for—on the condition they remain Catholic,” said the fifty-one-year-old savant. He ticked another item off a list that he had spread out on a Dresden china dinner-plate blazoned with the arms of the Guelphs.
Then he glanced up, expecting to see the hem of the sixty-seven-year-old queen’s ball gown hovering just above the tabletop. Instead, the garment—miles of gathered silk, made dangerous by an underlying framework of bone and steel—whacked him in the face, and stripped off his spectacles, as the Electress of Hanover made a smart about-face.
“It took me a week to grind these lenses.” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz leaned sideways to rake his spectacles up off the floor. He had to keep his head upright to prevent his biggest and best wig from sliding off his bald, sweaty scalp. This gave him a crick in the neck, however enabled him to get a charming view of muscular white calves pumping in and out as his patroness stormed down the mid-line of the banquet-table.
“This is news,” she complained, “I could get it from any of my Privy Councillors. From you I expect better: gossip, or philosophy.”
Leibniz got to his feet, and took part of his chair with him; his vacant scabbard had got locked up in a bit of Barock wood-carving. The sound of a blade whipping through the air made him cringe and duck. “Almost got it!” Sophie exclaimed, fascinatedly.
“Gossip…I am trying to think of some gossip. Er, your daughter’s palace in Berlin continues to shape up splendidly. The courtiers there are all in an uproar.”
“The same uproar as last week, or a different one?”
“With every day that passes, with every new statue and fresco that is added to the Charlottenburg, it becomes more and more difficult to deny the awkward—the embarrassing—the monstrous fact that Frederick, the Elector of Brandenburg and probable future King of Prussia, is in love with your daughter.”
“Why should that be the cause of an uproar?”
“Because they are married to each other. It is viewed as bestial—perverse.”
“Really it is because of what the courtiers all believe about me.”
“That you planted Sophie Charlotte there to control Frederick?”
“Mmmm.”
“Well, did you?”
“If I did, it obviously worked, and that is what the courtiers cannot abide,” Sophie answered vaguely. She now whirled again, her formidable Hem shredding a few centerpiece snapdragons, and ran down the table with silk ribbons trailing behind her like battle-streamers. She made another vicious cut with the sword. Candle-tops scattered and came to rest in splashes of their own wax, spinning out threads of smoke. “I could finish this in an instant if this verdammt burning bush were not in my way,” she said meditatively, pointing the sword at a candelabra that had been hammered together out of several hundred pounds of Harz silver by artisans with a lot of time on their hands.
A few servants, who had to this point kept as far as they could from the Electress, peeled their backs off the wall of the dining-hall and scuttled inwards toward the offending fixture, knees flexed and hands raised. Sophie ignored them and tilted the rapier this way and that, letting the light of the surviving candles trickle up and down the blade. “No wonder you could not wrest it out of its scabbard,” she said, “it was rusted in place, wasn’t it?”
“…”
“What if I had to call upon you to defend my realms, Doctor?”
“Swordsmen are gettable. I could fashion a hell of a siege-engine, or make myself useful in some other wise.”
“Make yourself useful now! I do not need to hear gossip from Berlin. My daughter sends me more than I need, and little Princess Caroline has been posting me the most excellent letters—your doing?”
“I have taken some interest in her education since the untimely death of her mother. Sophie Charlotte has become the next best thing, however, and I sense I am needed less and less.”
“Ach, now I can move, but I cannot see,” complained Sophie, squinting up towards a fresco shrouded by poor light and ancient congealed smoke. “I can’t tell the painted-on Furies from the living bat.”
“I believe those would be harpies, your majesty.”
“I will show you what a harpy is, if you do not begin doing your job!”
“Right…well, Louis XIV has a mickle abscess on his neck. That’s not very good, is it? Right, then…the French will now recognize William as King of England, and all of the titles he has bestowed. So, to mention a few examples, John Churchill is now Earl of Marlborough, the Duchess d’Arcachon is now also the Duchess of Qwghlm.”
“Arcachon-Qwghlm…yes…we have heard of her,” Sophie announced, making a momentous decision.
“She’ll be overjoyed, your Electoral Highness, that you recognize her existence. For she respects no monarch in this world more than your Electoral Highness.”
“What about her own liege-lords, Louis and William? Does she not respect them?” inquired her Electoral Highness.
“Er…protocol, I’m sure, forbids the Duchess from preferring one over the other…besides which, both of them are, sorry to say, men.”
“I see what you mean. Does this double Duchess have a Christian name?”
“Eliza.”
“Children? Other than—unless I’m mistaken—that energetic little bastard who is always following my banker around.”
“Two surviving children thus far: Adelaide, four, and Louis, going on two; the latter is the personal unification of the Houses of Arcachon and of Qwghlm, and, if he survives his father, will become lord of a hyphenated Duchy, like Orange-Nassau or Brandenburg-Prussia.”
“Arcachon-Qwghlm doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, I’m afraid. What are her pastimes?”
“Natural Philosophy, amazingly complex financial machinations, and the abolition of slavery.”
“White, or all of it?”
“I believe she means to begin with white, and then leverage legal precedents thus obtained to extend it to all.”