The Queen's Exiles Read online

  “You have. He is my husband.”

  Fenella didn’t know why that should surprise her, but it did. The plump proprietor of the ladies’ shop didn’t seem suited to such risky business. Altogether too soft. Yet she was clearly a committed partner. No longer Madame Beaumont but Sister Agatha. “Is he here?”

  “Upstairs. Come.”

  “No,” the man told her. “He left.”

  This was clearly news to the lady. “Where?”

  He shrugged. “Young Brother Pieter came running in the back and dashed upstairs. Then Brother Ambrose came hurrying down with him and they left.”

  Sister Agatha gave him a knowing look. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial hush. “To Zilvermidstraat?”

  Another shrug. “No one tells me.” He laid his hand on a lever of the press as though wanting to get back to work and gave Fenella a dark, quirky smile. “And that’s the way I like it.”

  “Come,” Sister Agatha told Fenella with fresh energy. “I know where Brother Ambrose has gone. I’ll take you to him. Let me just get my shawl.”

  When she came downstairs she had removed her fanciful headdress and wore a simple lace coif over her neat, brown hair. Leaving the shop, they passed the fountain where Fenella had seen the boys with the boats. The boys were gone. She and Sister Agatha set out across the city. We look like two housewives on our way to market, Fenella thought. It made her feel calmer.

  “Forgive my caution when you asked in the shop for my husband,” her companion said. “We have to be very careful. Two weeks ago there was a raid on the Mechelen Brethren. One of Alba’s agents had infiltrated their group to entrap them. They are a small chapter, only seven. All are now in prison.”

  Fenella was sorry for the poor souls but had no wish to know any more about them. Thankfully, Sister Agatha did not chatter, despite some sidelong glances that spoke of her curiosity to know more about Fenella. She was clearly following the Brethren’s guiding principle that the less the members knew about one another the safer they all were. That was fine with Fenella. They walked the rest of the way in silence.

  People hurried past them along the street. Fenella did not know Brussels well, but she knew they were getting close to the city’s center, where the great buildings of state surrounded the Grote Markt. She and her quiet companion skirted the edge of the Grote Markt, avoiding its wide expanse. More people hustled by them. A burly man knocked Sister Agatha in his haste. “Why is everyone in such a hurry?” she grumbled, rubbing her banged shoulder.

  “Is it much farther?” Fenella asked. She longed to have this business done with. She had left her horse on Berck’s island a half hour’s walk away and was eager to get it and then be on her way to Antwerp. But she couldn’t say that was the reason for her impatience. “Carrying so much gold makes me nervous. Thieves.”

  “We’re almost there. Turn here, Zilvermidstraat. It’s a house at the corner, there.”

  Thank goodness. Fenella smiled inside, thinking how free she would feel leaving the city, lightened of her burden, both the gold and her fear of capture. A day’s ride would bring her to the cove where the Odette lay at anchor. To Adam.

  “Hush,” Sister Agatha said suddenly, halting in mid-stride.

  Fenella stopped. “What is it?”

  “Hear that?”

  Fenella strained to listen. Two women ran past her, one tugging a child. Fenella heard, past the buildings, a hum like a flock of raucous starlings thronging a tree. She realized it was a throng of people. Excited people. There was another sound, too, a rumbling beneath the hum.

  Her skin prickled. The sound was drums. An execution.

  Sister Agatha turned to her, her face tense. She, too, knew what was happening. “It’s big. Look at all these people.”

  Men and women were flocking along Zilvermidstraat and turning at the corner onto a street that led to the Grote Markt. Sister Agatha tugged Fenella’s arm. “Come.”

  Fenella balked. She had no wish to see poor folk hanged. “No, we need to get to Brother Ambrose.”

  “Later. Now, we must bear witness.” The words were stern. “It’s what the Brethren do.”

  Fenella had no choice. To get to Brother Ambrose she had to stick with his wife. They followed the people hurrying toward the public square. Men and women and children fairly ran in their excitement. Fenella and Sister Agatha grimly marched.

  They reached the edge of the Grote Markt and pushed through the gathering throng, and when they broke through to the front they saw the execution party coming toward them. Six soldiers on horseback led it, followed by at least two dozen prisoners in dirty clothing, their hands bound at their backs, shuffling single file. Ropes around their waists tethered them together like packhorses. They were flanked by ten soldiers on foot on either side of the column. Four drummers brought up the rear.

  Fenella’s eyes were drawn to the commander who rode the lead horse. Valverde, again. Instinctively, she turned away so he would not see her, though scores of people separated them.

  “Oh, dear God,” Sister Agatha moaned. “Our Brethren.”

  Fenella didn’t want to turn around. Had Valverde passed them yet? But the Huguenot woman tugged Fenella’s sleeve and said in an agonized whisper, “Bear witness, Sister Anne. These are your people.”

  Fenella shivered. Not mine. She cautiously turned, and saw the back of Valverde as he rode on. Relaxing a little, she watched the prisoners who now shuffled past, ragged men with blood-caked noses and bruised faces. Some walked with their heads down; some looked straight ahead in a daze of terror. A few faces looked familiar. Where had she seen these men? A winter crept over her skin. She’d met them in the underground warren beneath the farmhouse. Your people. The Brethren of Polder!

  She spotted an old man . . . with one arm. Her heart punched up in her throat.

  Johan!

  She clutched Sister Agatha’s arm for support. Behind Johan a tall prisoner shuffled, his face a blue-black mottle of bruises and scabs. The shock was a bullet to Fenella’s chest.

  The prisoner was Claes.

  12

  The Letter

  “Look at him kick!” a man crowed.

  “Can’t see anything with you in the way,” someone grumbled. “Shove aside!”

  Fenella thought she might vomit. Five prisoners swung from the gallows across the square. In a stupor of shock she had watched the guards string them up. The floor had dropped out from under them. Their necks snapped. They kicked the air. The crowd roared.

  “May God have mercy on their souls,” Sister Agatha murmured.

  The five corpses hung limp. Guards cut them down and hauled them to the side of the scaffold. The floor was raised again. Below the scaffold the rest of the prisoners stood packed behind a rope barrier like animals in a pen. Fenella thought wildly, Johan and Claes are among them . . . but where? Bodies jostled her, hemming her in, blocking her view. She gripped Sister Agatha’s arm. She had to, just to stay standing. Her legs felt as spongy as moss. She sucked in sharp breaths to steady herself.

  The drums rumbled again. “Now the next ones,” Sister Agatha said grimly. The crowd gabbled in excitement. The hangings were about to continue.

  Fenella craned to see past the people, past the soldiers patrolling on horseback and the guards on foot. It was a sea of heads and backs and pikes and horses. Then, through a crack between shoulders she glimpsed guards pushing the next group of condemned up the steps onto the scaffold. Five . . . but she couldn’t see who! Johan? Claes? Panic swarmed over her. She had to see! She bolted forward. The satchel slid off her shoulder and dropped. She barged on, shoving men and women out of her way. They grunted in anger, and a fat woman lost her balance and fell. Curses rained on Fenella. She barged on, her eyes fixed on the prisoners who were stumbling up the steps, arms bound at their backs. She had almost reached the front of the crowd. A thin line of steel-helmeted guards stood facing the people, spread out, one to her left, one to her right. Could she dash through the break between them
? She squeezed through to the front rank.

  A hand snatched the back of her collar. She struggled, off-balance. The hand was Sister Agatha’s. “Let me go!” Fenella cried. “I have to—”

  “You can’t get to them,” Sister Agatha warned in a fierce whisper. She had picked up Fenella’s dropped satchel and slung it over her shoulder. “Even if you made it across the square they’d stop you. There’s no—”

  “Marguerite!” a man called. He was forcing his way toward them through the crowd, squeezing past people, his arm outstretched.

  “Jacques!” Sister Agatha reached out to him. They clasped hands above the head of a child whose parents stood agog at the scaffold activity.

  “Pieter told me.” The man’s hushed voice was tight with emotion. “I had to see if it was true.” He and Sister Agatha gripped each other’s hands. For reassurance, it seemed to Fenella. For strength. The unmistakable bond of man and wife. This has to be Brother Ambrose. He added in a louder, forced cheerful tone clearly meant for the people around them, “Our ’prentices love a free afternoon, my dear.” A young man beside him gave a friendly nod of agreement.

  Fenella understood with a jolt: Officials had given the city’s apprentices leave to attend the hangings. To watch Johan and Claes and their friends die. She thought she might scream. Sister Agatha still held her by the collar and the crowd had closed around them. Fenella craned to see. Which prisoners were being led to the gallows? “Let me go!” she cried.

  Brother Ambrose shot her a dark look. “Who’s this?”

  “The visitor we were expecting,” said his wife. “From your cousins in the north, remember?”

  A gap opened ahead and Fenella could suddenly see the prisoners on the scaffold. Five. Her heart thumped. Johan! She bolted, breaking Sister Agatha’s grip. The guard closest to her had turned to watch a commotion in a far section of the crowd. An empty swath of the square stretched between her and the scaffold. She burst out of the front rank.

  A horseman trotted past her, his eyes on the scaffold. Fenella froze. The rider was Valverde. In his wake she smelled leather and steel and horse. She gulped a breath. He hadn’t noticed her.

  She darted past his horse’s rump and dashed for the scaffold. More horsemen were not far away, but her raw need to reach Johan kept her running. It was hard to breathe, dust clogging her throat. In her ears the hum of the crowd. The rumble of the drums.

  The scaffold was now just a stone’s throw away. Beside it, the pack of prisoners stood behind a screen of guards. She was so near she heard their murmurs of despair, smelled their sweat, their fear. She looked up at the five on the scaffold. Johan stood swaying, weak. A rope wrapped around his waist pinned his single arm against his body. The hangman dropped a noose over his head. Fenella opened her mouth to cry out, No! but choked as she glimpsed Claes in the pack. His beaten face . . . his haggard eyes locked on Johan. Claes!

  Two guards marched forward to block her. “Halt there!”

  She tried to dash around them. One grabbed her arm and she staggered. They manhandled her backward, used to dealing with people who’d lost their senses. She struggled and squirmed to get free. She had no mind, only a burning need to reach Claes . . . reach Johan. “Let me go!”

  At her cry Johan turned his face. His gaunt eyes met hers. Her heart wailed: Johan! I’m here! But she saw that he scarcely recognized her. He coughed. That raw cough that she’d so long feared would kill him. The pitiful thought cut her to her soul. Disoriented, dazed, Johan blinked and looked across at the prisoners in the pack. Looking at Claes? A silent good-bye to his son? It tore Fenella’s heart. She writhed, trying to break free of the guards, her arm outstretched toward Johan.

  Hands gripped her shoulders from behind. “We’ve got her now, sir,” Brother Ambrose said, his voice meek, deferential. “She’s with us.”

  The guard threatened, “If she wants to join the ones on the gallows we can do that.”

  “My wife’s cousin, sir, please forgive her.” Brother Ambrose touched his temple. “She’s never been quite right in the head.”

  The guard grunted, relenting. “Take her away.”

  “Come now, dear,” Sister Agatha coaxed her. “Let’s get you home.”

  Fenella shook off their hands.

  “Come!” Brother Ambrose ordered.

  Fenella swung a fist at him. He caught her arm. She stumbled. The two of them dragged her backward toward the crowd. “No!” she cried, straining to look over her shoulder at Claes. At Johan. “I’ve got to stop them!”

  “Be quiet,” Sister Agatha whispered tightly.

  “Or I’ll make you quiet,” Sister Agatha’s husband warned, his grip like claws on Fenella’s arm, dragging her. They reached the front rank of the crowd.

  “Please,” she begged, her throat raw. “I’ll be still. Just let me see!”

  The drums stopped. A thud from the scaffold. A roar from the crowd.

  Fenella spun around.

  The five men hung from the gallows. Johan’s body twisted slowly. Head bent. Neck broken.

  Horror roared through Fenella’s head. No! . . . No! . . . No!

  A horse cantered past her. A whiff of leather and steel. Valverde. She did not move. Could not move. The wailing child inside her said, If you don’t move, this didn’t happen! If you don’t move, Johan’s still alive!

  The Brethren couple were whispering intensely. “What are they doing?” . . . “Singling him out?” . . . “Oh, dear God, is he next?”

  Fenella tore her eyes from Johan’s broken body. Valverde had trotted over to the pack of condemned prisoners. He was beckoning one man out. Claes.

  Fenella’s heart banged in her chest. Looking stunned, Claes stepped forward from the pack of doomed prisoners. He blinked in confusion, gazing up at Valverde on his horse. Valverde motioned to another horseman to join him. The two of them flanked Claes. Horror crawled over Fenella. He’s next. Valverde motioned Claes to move.

  But wait . . . Valverde and the other horseman were guiding Claes in the other direction . . . away from the pack.

  “What are they doing?” Brother Ambrose whispered in awe to his wife. “He’s not going to hang?”

  Fenella felt a punch of hope. “Spared?” Her horror drained so fast she felt light-headed. “Yes! Look, he’s been spared!”

  “But where are they taking him?”

  Feet tramped on the scaffold. Fenella looked back. Guards were cutting down the dead men. Five more were being led to the gallows. The drums rolled. A guard dragged Johan’s corpse to the edge of the platform. Dropped him with the others.

  The horror rushed back and she felt she would retch. Johan. He’d come home to fight. To die fighting. They killed you before you could try.

  Her vision darkened. She swayed. The light died.

  A flowery smell. Perfume. Tainted by another smell. Ink?

  Fenella opened her eyes. Had she been asleep? The bed she lay on was soft, plump with pillows. The filmy bed-curtains, drawn aside, stirred in a draft from the open door. She started to rise. It was a struggle, her limbs as heavy as though weighted by rocks. She sank back.

  “Better?” Sister Agatha sat beside the bed sewing lace onto a beribboned length of gauze.

  Fenella tried to speak, but her tongue felt thick as cloth.

  “It will wear off.” Sister Agatha regarded her over the needlework. “Ah, I see you don’t remember. I thought it best to give you a sleeping draft.”

  Shards of memory flashed. Lying on the ground, the crowd looking down at her. Brother Ambrose slapping her cheek to rouse her from her faint. Walking back through the city between the couple to their shop, her weakened muscles twitching, her mind thrashing. Johan dead . . . Claes, taken where? Stumbling through their door, up the stairs. Someone handing her a goblet of wine. Swallowing. A bitter taste. Then, all fog.

  “A bad day,” Sister Agatha said. Her nimble fingers plied the needle with relaxed skill and anyone might think she had spoken of nothing worse than unpleasant
weather. But her face was pale and her lips pursed with tension. Her eyes flicked up to Fenella. “Mark me, you’re going to need a thicker skin for this work.”

  Work? The horror rolled back. Johan swinging . . . the corpses . . . Valverde . . . the condemned pack . . . Claes! She snatched that ray of hope. “Did they let Claes go?”

  The woman’s eyes snapped in anger. “Never say that name.”

  Fenella struggled to remember the name they used. “I mean . . . Brother Domenic. The commander led him away from the condemned. You saw that, didn’t you?”

  “We don’t know what all that was about. We’re waiting to hear.”

  She managed to push herself up onto her elbow. She had to know! “But have they set him free?”

  “Patience, Sister Anne. Brother Ambrose has gone to find out.” Fenella sank back down, her head still foggy. Brother . . . Sister. She remembered the moment when the couple had called to each other in the crowd: Marguerite! Jacques! Their public names. Through the open door Fenella glimpsed the staircase that led down to the room with the printing press, the room behind the ladies’ shop. The couple must be known locally as Jacques and Marguerite Beaumont, the French emigrants who ran the shop, but Fenella knew they were disciplined Brethren, using “Sister” and “Brother” for their risky work. Yet she had also seen them desperately clasp hands to comfort each other and give each other strength. Husband and wife. Marguerite and Jacques would be the names they murmured to each other in private. Now, she could think of them no other way.

  “When will he be back? Brother Ambrose, I mean.”

  Marguerite shook her head but did not miss a stitch. “I told you, have patience.”

  Fenella heard a new edge in the Frenchwoman’s voice. Bitterness? Fear? A wave of guilt rushed over her, for she suddenly realized that her reckless action at the hangings might have dangerous repercussions. “Have I . . . put you in danger?” she asked.

  A hard look. “We accept danger. And loss. You must learn to do the same.”