The Queen's Exiles Page 28

  Carlos hopped down from the wagon, leaving the winded nag breathing hard. Fausto, in train, was frisky. The couple in the wagon lay unmoving under the tarpaulin. “Get down,” Carlos told Fenella. “Be quick.”

  She looked out from under the covering, her gaunt eyes hopeful but wary as she scanned the flat countryside. Her husband lay beside her, blinking at the sky.

  “Bring him, too. Can he walk?”

  She helped Doorn to his feet. He groaned, as much in bewilderment as pain, it seemed to Carlos. Fevered from his wound, for sure. Would he make it?

  “What’s happening?” Fenella asked Carlos as she led Doorn to the edge of the wagon.

  “Take him down there, under the bridge,” Carlos told her, helping the man down. Doorn felt all bones. But there was a core of strength about him, a fierceness to resist the fever. Carlos glanced toward the oncoming priest. “Quick.”

  Together they led Doorn down into the tangle of weeds under the bridge. There, on the shadowed slope where the weeds were thinner, Fenella got her husband to sit. He was shivering, disoriented, pale of face.

  “What’s happening?” she said again to Carlos. “What are we doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  “For what?”

  Carlos was not superstitious, but a voice inside him warned that telling the plan might curse it. He couldn’t let himself think of the consequences. “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” he said, and saw from her face that she remembered. He’d said those words to her in her dungeon cell.

  “Thank you,” she said shakily.

  Doorn moaned. They both looked at him. “He needs water,” she said.

  Carlos had a wineskin of water strapped to Fausto. He was glad to be active. “Stay here,” he told Fenella. He went to his horse and fetched the wineskin. The priest on his donkey was nearing, close enough now that Carlos could hear the faint clomp of the hooves. He brought back the water and Fenella helped Doorn drink it. Some dribbled over his parched lips. He raised his eyes to her as though recognizing her for the first time. He motioned for her to drink, too, an impulse more instinctive than conscious. The gesture struck Carlos. Even in extremity the man was concerned for his wife.

  Isabel. Worry gripped Carlos’s heart. Did she get away?

  Fenella took a swallow of water. She looked unsteady, exhausted, beaten. Carlos had seen soldiers with that look, too traumatized to go on. She needed some good news. “The girl that Alba ordered killed,” he said. “She wasn’t Thornleigh’s daughter.” He explained that Alba had brought two beggar children from the street and dressed them in fine clothes to convince her. She looked horrified. She sat down beside Doorn, stunned, taking it in. When she looked up at Carlos again he saw a flicker of joyful relief in her eyes. She cared about Thornleigh; that was clear. Did Doorn know? No time to think about that now. “Stay here,” Carlos said again, and left them to go back up to the wagon.

  The priest reached the bridge, a wrinkled old man, slumped from lack of muscles. He nodded to Carlos.

  “Good day, Father,” Carlos said, tucking the tarpaulin into his saddlebag. The stallion blocked the priest’s view of the end of the bridge and the fugitives beneath it.

  The priest halted his donkey. “Trouble with your wagon, Commander?”

  “Just giving the nag a rest.”

  “Ah,” the priest said with a chuckle, “we old nags do need that from time to time.” He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his eyes of dust from the road.

  Fausto tossed his head. Carlos held the saddle horn tight to keep the stallion from moving. He could see, in the distance to the south, some movement at the Laeken Gate. A wagon coming this way. Too far to make out any details.

  “Are you bound for Antwerp as I am?” the priest asked. “I’ll rest with you, and then we can travel together.”

  “I’d like that, Father, if I weren’t going the opposite way. I’m for the capital. So don’t let me keep you. You’ll want a bed before sundown, and your beast is slow.”

  The priest nodded with a sigh. “Too true.” He tucked away his handkerchief, wished Carlos good day, kicked his donkey, and plodded on.

  Carlos did not look at the slope beneath the bridge. The priest might glance back. Instead, Carlos watched the wagon coming from the Laeken Gate. It was coming fast.

  His pulse picked up. Not a wagon. A coach. Two horses, hooves pounding the road. He watched it come on, half-hoping, half-dreading. In the silence, the windmill creaked.

  Then, sunlight glinted off the door’s golden crest. Yes! The duchess’s coach!

  Just before the bridge the coach clattered to a halt. Carlos swung open the door. Isabel was already on her feet, arms outstretched to him. Her smile thrilled him. So did her bravery. This rendezvous had been her idea. He’d been afraid for her safety, but she had insisted. “Are you all right?” he asked as he lifted her down.

  “Yes, fine.”

  “Andrew and Nell?”

  “Safely away this morning with Hughes.”

  He let out a breath of relief. All was going as they’d planned. So far.

  “Where are they?” Isabel said, taking in the empty wagon in dismay. “Could you not get them?”

  He glanced at the two coachmen side by side on the seat, one holding the reins, both looking at him with interest. He said in a low voice, “What about the coachmen?”

  “It’s all right,” she assured him. “I had Frances instruct them to pick up my passengers.”

  Carlos had to smile. Isabel had managed things so well. “They’re here. Hold on.” He went down the slope and under the bridge. Fenella sat huddled in fearful anticipation with Doorn, her arm around him protectively. She must have heard the coach stop. “Don’t worry,” Carlos told her. “It’s a friend. Come.”

  He got them on their feet, brought them up to the coach. “You remember my wife?”

  “Madam!” Fenella exclaimed in amazement.

  “Mistress Doorn,” Isabel said warmly, “I heard what you’ve suffered, you and your husband.” The sight of Doorn’s blood-scabbed gash clearly rocked her.

  Carlos had his eyes on movement at the Laeken Gate in the distance. Horsemen, leaving the gate. Ten or twelve of them. Galloping.

  “Get in, and help him in,” he told Fenella. “If anyone stops the coach my wife will say you’re her servants and she’s taking Doorn to a doctor. You’re going to Antwerp. Then, get yourself and your husband on the first ship for England.”

  “Yes . . . yes.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, how can we ever thank you?”

  “By staying alive. Now get in.”

  She was so overcome, she kissed his cheek. He looked at Isabel. She saw the kiss and looked surprised, then blinked it away as though aware that in such a crisis who would not be overcome?

  Fenella helped Doorn into the coach, then got in herself. Isabel said to Carlos with a quick smile, “I’m so big, you get in first and help me up, will you?”

  He held her back. “I’m not going.”

  She looked appalled. “What?”

  He glanced at the riders coming this way. Sunlight glinted off their breastplates and helmets. They would reach the bridge within minutes. Isabel followed his gaze. She stiffened. “Alba’s men! Carlos, come! Hurry!”

  “No. Get in quickly now, and go. You’ll be fine.”

  She balked. “No! You can’t stay here. They’ll take you!”

  “I won’t stay.” He untied Fausto from the back of the wagon.

  “I’m going to lead them away from you. When they find the wagon empty they’ll come after me to find Doorn.”

  “But if they capture you, Alba will—”

  “They won’t. You know how fast the stallion is.”

  It was a boast inflated only with hope, and Carlos saw that she knew it. But she said nothing more, and he blessed her for that. “I’ll lead them west, then turn and head for France. From Calais I’ll sail home. Now go. There’s no more time.”

  Holding Fausto
’s reins, he wrapped his other arm around Isabel and kissed her. A kiss to tell her all that she meant to him. A kiss to last him until he saw her again. If he lived.

  “Help her in,” he told Fenella.

  He made sure Isabel was safely aboard, despite her look of anguish at leaving him; then he told the coachmen to drive on with haste. The coachman flicked the reins and the vehicle clattered forward.

  Carlos swung up into the saddle. He watched the coach go, dust spitting from the rear wheels. Then he turned Fausto and faced the oncoming horsemen. He waited just long enough for Alba’s men to spot him. His black stallion would be familiar to some of them. Waiting, he considered his chances. Fausto was fast. And with Isabel’s kiss still on his lips he made a vow. If he lived through this he would tell her what had happened between him and Fenella in Edinburgh. Tell her before she heard it from someone else. Tell her it had meant nothing.

  He kicked his spurs into Fausto’s flanks and galloped west.

  19

  The Cove

  A full moon shone over Antwerp. In the harbor, moored ships slumbered. On the wharf, fishmongers’ stalls lay deserted.

  Fenella tightened her arm around Claes as she led him down the fishmongers’ dock, a spur of the main wharf. He was so weak she was half-dragging him. “Almost there,” she promised. She looked over her shoulder in dread of seeing someone come after them. Her arm around him trembled from the strain of holding him up.

  She made for the battery of fishing boats, skiffs, and rowboats bobbing in the water alongside the dock. The bright moonlight made her feel horribly exposed, like a furtive harbor rat. Thank God they were in the shadows of the harbormaster’s tower. But Claes shambling beside her was so slow, like an anchor being dragged. She hated herself for thinking that about him after all he had suffered, but they had to move. She had to get to the cove to warn Adam. Alba’s men were surely coming for him. Because I told. The horror of the beggar girl’s murder, and the horror of how Fenella had betrayed Adam because of it, gnawed her without mercy. How she hated Alba for his unspeakable trick! She prayed that she might be wrong about Adam taking refuge in the cove, prayed that he was sailing somewhere, free, and far from Alba’s reach. But if he was in the cove, Alba’s men would soon swoop down on him.

  “Just a few more steps,” she assured Claes. She knew he was trying hard to keep pace. On the coach ride from Brussels he had surfaced from the worst of his fever, had regained his mental bearings at least. Valverde’s wife had taken linen from her luggage and Fenella had used it to bandage the ghastly wound where Claes’s ear had been severed, winding strips around his head. The journey had given him a chance to rest, enough to croak his wishes when the coach reached the wharf at sunset. Valverde’s wife was preparing to board a merchant ship about to sail for Portsmouth, expecting them to come with her, but Claes had balked. “No, not England . . . not me,” he had said hoarsely. “I’ll stay . . . and fight.”

  Fenella had not anticipated that. Her thought had been to get him away to safety and then she would follow after she’d warned Adam. But Claes’s refusal did not completely surprise her. He had made the rebels’ cause his life. She sensed that as long as he had breath he would fight the Spaniards. As for her own plan to reach Adam, she had not told Claes, nor told Valverde’s wife. Fenella couldn’t bear to admit to Adam’s kind sister that she had betrayed him. Besides, she was far from sure that she could warn him in time. “Madam,” she had said, “I am staying, too.”

  “What? But you’ll be safe in England. Both of you.”

  “Thank you, but no. There’s business to be done here first. God be with you, madam, and our heartfelt thanks.”

  The lady had to get to England to join her children. She sailed away. Fenella and Claes waited until dark, hiding behind a wharf alehouse amid its crates and trash until the fishmongers’ dock was deserted. It had meant losing a precious hour but had given her a chance to explain to Claes where she was taking him, and why.

  “The English baron?” His haggard eyes were suddenly bright with anticipation. “And he’s with the Sea Beggars?”

  It was hard to hide the depth of her feelings for Adam. “That’s what Alba told me. And I believe it.”

  “Good. Very good. We’ll join them.”

  After that, Claes’s fever seemed to drag him under again. He fought it—Fenella saw him fighting to stay lucid, stay strong in spirit—but his body was so weak.

  Now, half-dragging him along the dock, she prayed that they weren’t too late.

  She chose a skiff small enough to sail single-handed. Claes was in no condition to help. The skiff was a grimy, slapped-together thing, its gunwales splintered, more a cracked cockleshell than a boat. She lugged Claes aboard, breathing hard at the weight of him, thin though he was. She settled him on a mat of rope in the stern, and he gave her a faint smile of relief that squeezed her heart. Poor Claes, what hell he had been through.

  The cramped craft stank of fish, and its rigging was frayed, and as she raised the sail she saw that the canvas was patched. Her fatigued muscles were trembling as she took the helm. After the torments of the dungeon she hoped she still had the strength to sail. Blessedly, the breeze was on her starboard beam, pushing her away from the dock, and the bright moonlight now became her friend, illuminating the moored ships that she had to navigate around to get to the harbor mouth. Once clear of them she hardened the sheet and the wind caught the sail, and the skiff ghosted swiftly out of the harbor. Fenella took her first deep breath, relishing the fresh sea breeze. Freedom might not last long, but for this moment it tasted sweet.

  The passage down the estuary and out to the scattered islands took six grueling hours. Claes spent it in restless half sleep. Fenella was bleary-eyed from no sleep and tense with worry. Had Adam already been discovered and dragged to prison? Dawn was a smudge of pearly light on the horizon when she spotted the whitish swirl of water over a rock shoal that told her she was near the cove. She stayed well clear of the shoal and scanned the aspen-thick shoreline, looking for the tall dead birch tree that marked the narrow opening to the scythe-shaped cove. Birds awaking in the trees chorused a liquid warble.

  There it was, the dead birch! “Claes, wake up! We’re here.” He struggled to sit up and watched as Fenella tacked the skiff and steered into the narrow opening. The wind lightened in the lee of the trees. The sail flogged, and the drop in power made steering difficult. The passage into the cove curled like a nautilus, and as Fenella rounded the last of the curve she saw two ships lying at anchor. Adam!

  But no . . . her heart plunged. Neither vessel was the Elizabeth. Who were these interlopers?

  Horror surged through her. Spaniards? Had they taken Adam away?

  Fool! I’ve sailed right into the arms of the enemy! Terrified, she scrambled to tack the skiff, desperate to sail out again before they saw her and Claes. Too late! A crewman on the near ship shouted of her approach. She was still straining to bring the bow around in the light wind when she heard Claes say weakly in surprise, “It’s Verhulst!”

  Fenella whipped around and followed his gaze to the crewman on the ship’s foredeck. She stared in amazement. Berck Verhulst? How was it possible? But there was no mistaking Berck’s huge bulk and black beard. A memory flashed of him buying rope in her Polder chandlery, he and Claes discussing rigging. Now Berck stood pointing at her, and crew were coming to the rail to see. Fenella took another look at the ship, a caravel. Her terror of Spaniards had blinded her before. The caravel was startlingly familiar. The Gotland . . . from Sark! She’s mine!

  “Fenella!” Berck called. “Ahoy!”

  The men at the rail moved aside and suddenly Adam was there. Stunned, Fenella could make no sense of any of it, but the sight of Adam was all she needed. “Ahoy!” she cried. She tacked back and in a moment brought the skiff alongside the Gotland. As she tied her bowline to the ship’s chain plate the crew tumbled a rope ladder over the side for her. She went to Claes to help him to his feet.

  �
��Friends?” he said, struggling to get up. “Verhulst . . .”

  “Yes, friends.” She helped Claes get a foothold on the ladder. He climbed, shaky but determined, and she kept a steadying hand on him as long as possible, then climbed up after him. On deck Berck had hold of him by the shoulders and gaped at him in amazement. “Claes, my friend! Back from the dead, as I live and breathe! And Fenella! What the devil are you doing here?”

  “I could ask the same of you!” she said.

  Claes blinked, looking around him. “Are we with the Sea Beggars?”

  “You are, my friend.” Berck pointed across the deck to the other ship where crewmen, gathered at the rail, had made way for their captain, a gaudily dressed man with a baby face but fierce eyes. “That’s Captain La Marck!” Berck said, and pulled Claes into an embrace.

  “Fenella . . .” Adam was gazing at her in wonder.

  Shaken, she was hardly able to steady her voice. “I see you went to Sark.”

  “And found they’d burned the Elizabeth.”

  She gasped. His ship! “So you took the Gotland.”

  “If I’d known where you were I—”

  “No, it’s all right. You joined the Beggars.”

  “To kill Spaniards.” He seemed about to say more but stopped as though questions crammed his throat. He looked at Claes, at his bandaged head, his neck and shirt stained with dried blood. “Who’s this?”

  Claes struggled to stand tall. “The name is Doorn.”

  Fenella held her breath. But Adam did not seem to make the connection. Naturally—he believed her husband was dead. And Doorn was a common Dutch name. “I’m Thornleigh,” he said.

  “I know,” Claes managed, and added with clear admiration, “and I know of your work, my lord, in the cause of our country’s freedom.”