The Queen's Exiles Read online

  Then he saw a man burst out of the rear of the throng. Skinny like so many of the poor, in grubby homespun clothes, he was racing to escape, not looking back. Carlos kicked his horse and barreled through the last rank of people, finally clear of them. He galloped after the culprit, past houses and shops and pedestrians, gaining on the man. The culprit swerved and ducked down a side street. Carlos reached the intersection and saw the culprit weaving past carts, people, dogs, a farmer with two pigs. With a glance over his shoulder Carlos motioned to Martinez to follow the man. “After him!”

  Carlos turned down a lane that ran parallel to the side street. Galloping, he swerved left and bolted through a garden, and when he reached the street he drew rein, halting his horse. The culprit was running straight toward him, so hell-bent on escape he’d almost reached Carlos before he saw him and lurched to a stop. Carlos drew his sword, ready to strike if the culprit made a move to run. The fellow looked up at him, fear in his sunken eyes. Carlos froze. It was a boy. Tall, but still a boy. No more than twelve. Like Carlos’s son Andrew. The boy stood frozen, too, trembling. Carlos, shaken, lowered his sword. In the silence between them his horse heaved bellows breaths.

  The boy’s eyes went wide in surprise, as he sensed he was safe. He bolted for a gap between houses. But Martinez was now bearing down on him. Martinez’s horse’s chest hit the boy with a thud, knocking the breath from him and sending him sprawling in the dust. Both horsemen trotted up to him.

  “Get up,” Carlos said. Run, boy, he wanted to say. If he’d been alone he might have. But Martinez was already prodding the boy’s back with the flat of his sword as the captive struggled to his feet, and people in the street had stopped to watch, others leaning out of windows.

  Carlos and Martinez brought the boy back to the market square, swords drawn as they rode behind him. The crowd let out a roar of anticipation when they saw the two horsemen lead in their prisoner. Some of the burghers were on their feet in the stands, applauding. The councillors at the statue glared at the boy, indignant at the disruption that had marred their ceremony.

  Guards took hold of the boy. He looked up at Carlos, his face white with dust and fear. “Please, sir . . . they hanged my father . . . and my brothers. Please . . . I’m the last.”

  It pressed a weight on Carlos’s heart that made him angry. Then why poke the hornet’s nest, fool? Guards dragged the boy before the city officials. The officials looked up at Alba on his shaded dais. They sent a messenger running up the stands to him. Alba exchanged a few words with the messenger, then gave a nod.

  The crowd hummed, anxious, excited. Everyone knew the governor’s nod was his command.

  The boy was hauled to the gallows. He resisted wildly, kicking and squirming and weeping. Carlos watched in pity and disgust. The boy had a chance to die bravely, but he wasn’t going to. Carlos trotted back to his position at the head of his troop, wishing the whole God-cursed business were over. Hang the poor fool, give me my pension, and let me take my family home.

  But the business turned into something worse than a hanging. The noose was dropped over the head of the boy, who squealed in terror, his face red and contorted with crying, and they strung him up. But they’d kept the rope short so it wouldn’t break his neck as a normal hanging would. He kicked at the air, strangling, his eyes bulging, his face turning a ghastly gray-blue. The people watched in a hush of horror and fascination. Then the hangman cut the boy down still alive, choking, gasping. Guards stripped off his ragged clothes. He was dragged, naked and half-dead, along the gallows platform so that everyone could see and then laid out on a bench where they tied him down. The executioner stepped forward, his butcher’s knife glinting in the sunlight. He slit the boy’s abdomen. The boy shrieked. Blood spurted. The knife dug in and its tip tugged out the coil of intestines. The boy’s body twitched in spasms. His eyes rolled in their sockets.

  A flurry of women’s voices sounded from the stands. Carlos looked toward the ladies clustered around the Viscountess Quintanilla. A knot of women were on their feet, agitated, bending over someone. Between them he glimpsed a slumped form. Isabel! She’d fainted. He dug his spurs into his horse and charged over to the stand, calling, “Isabel!”

  She was being helped to her feet by two ladies, and at his shout she looked at him, misery in her eyes. He reached the stands and drew rein. Isabel turned away from him, led off by her companions. Carlos watched her go, wanting to leap from the saddle and rush to her. He saw Alba’s eyes on him from the shadows of the dais, the gaunt face frowning.

  The brothel was beneath a city magistrate’s home on the River Scheldt. Faint voices from the nighttime river traffic drifted down the marble staircase from the street-level foyer.

  Carlos found the underground room blessedly cool. The walls and columns were tiled with mosaics, and golden light from hanging candelabras gleamed off the mosaics’ jewel-like colors. Music lilted from a lute, and perfume scented the cool air. Alba had insisted that Carlos come with him tonight, and as he drank the fine wine Carlos grudgingly admitted that the place was restful, though the wall-sized mosaic of a recumbent man being serviced by a trio of naked women, one with the fellow’s cock in her mouth, was hard to ignore. Carlos would have much preferred to have this meeting in Alba’s palace.

  Alba dealt another hand of cards to Carlos and their two companions. One was Alba’s thirty-year-old son, Fadrique, who lolled in his chair watching a girl sway in a languorous dance to the lute music played by a boy. The other was the Count of Monterra, the noble guest Alba was entertaining, although the plump, bare-breasted girl sitting on the count’s lap and nibbling his earlobe seemed to have that task firmly under control.

  “Valverde led the vanguard,” Alba was saying. Dealing cards, he was recounting the battle of Mühlberg over twenty years ago, his first victory as a general under Charles, king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, who had sent an army to rout the German forces. Carlos, just twenty-one then, had captained a company of the Emperor’s cavalry. Alba was praising him to the count, and Carlos wasn’t sorry he had come tonight if the climax of the praise was going to be news of a pension from King Philip. “It was April, mud up to our horses’ hocks,” Alba went on. Carlos remembered how Alba had ridden a white horse and worn white armor and long white plumes in his helmet. Supposedly, it was so that his men could identify him, but Alba never missed a chance to put on a show. “By the time we reached the bank of the Elbe the enemy’s forces had crossed and destroyed the only bridge. That must have satisfied them that we were no threat.” He glanced at Carlos with a look of fatherly pride. “And what did Valverde do? Instantly had his horsemen hack down trees and raise a makeshift bridge. We got all our troops across within an hour, and soon after nightfall we came upon the enemy, unprepared, asleep in the woods.” He laughed. “We made so many German corpses that night we piled them in heaps.”

  The count raised his goblet in a toast to Carlos, who gave a polite smile in return, but his thoughts slid back to the grisly execution of the boy in the market square. And to Isabel. When he saw that she’d fainted he feared a miscarriage. He’d sent his squire, Gomez, to the viscontess’s house and he brought back the message that Isabel was fine, had suffered nothing worse than a bruised hip. Carlos was relieved, but the scare left him itching to find out when he could take his family home to England. “You honor me, Your Grace,” he said now to Alba. “Which makes me bold to ask about the news you mentioned this morning.”

  But Alba’s attention had shifted to his son, who was getting to his feet at the arrival of a courtesan coming to greet him, a slim girl dressed as finely as a duchess except for her hair, which was colored a fantastic blue. Fadrique and the girl ambled off, chatting, toward one of the private baths.

  Carlos prompted Alba, “In your note, my lord?”

  The duke’s steely gray eyes shifted back to him. “Ah yes, good news for you, Valverde.” He smiled. “Very good.”

  Carlos could have whooped for joy. He forced himself not to
ask, How much is the pension? When can I start collecting it? He kept his question neutral. “From His Majesty?”

  “From His Majesty indeed. I am delighted to inform you that His Royal Highness has named you a Companion of the Order of San Baltazar.” Alba raised his goblet. “Congratulations.”

  Carlos wasn’t sure he understood. The Order of San Baltazar was a catchall group the King used to reward minor petitioners such as youngest sons of the least of the nobility, or adventurers who’d brought pirate gold to the royal treasury. A lackluster honor at best. Perhaps it was just a formality that went along with any royal pension? But the Count of Monterra’s disinterested look seemed proof of the lowly honor, and Alba, picking a candied almond out of a dish of sweets, said nothing more. Carlos wanted to grab him by the sleeve and demand an answer. Where’s my reward for a year of chasing down your damned rebels? But he held his frustration in check. He could say nothing in front of the count. He would have to get Alba alone. “Thank you, my lord.” Carlos managed a courteous bow of the head. “I am surely in your debt.”

  “Not at all,” Alba said breezily. “God knows you’ve earned it.” He added to the count, making the point, “My jails are full to bursting, in large part thanks to Valverde.” He looked up as a willowy courtesan joined them, a blonde in see-through gauze. “Ah, Sophie.” He rose and beckoned the count, whose own girl hopped off his lap. The two men and their women retired to the private rooms.

  The rest of the night was a trial. Carlos sat dealing cards to himself in games of solitaire, his frustration growing as he waited for the three lords to return. He knocked back several more goblets of wine and pretended to enjoy the lute music, and did, in fact, enjoy the attentions of a tired-looking girl who came to massage his shoulders. She’d brought a little monkey on a leash, her pet. She shrugged when Carlos declined to visit her room, then sat with him and drank with him to keep him company, and he almost felt sorry for her in her efforts to cheer him up by having the monkey do tricks for sugared almonds. But he could not muster a smile, and his mood became blacker the longer he waited for his companions.

  Dawn smudged the sky by the time the four men climbed into a boat, Fadrique swaying on drunken legs, the count continually burping, Alba wincing at an attack of his gout, Carlos weary and on edge. They were rowed back to the governor’s palace, where, under a torch-lit arch of the inner courtyard, Fadrique’s wolfhound bounded to him. He clapped a hand on the dog’s head to steady himself and stumbled to the staircase that led to his rooms. The count’s sleepy entourage of servants and gentlemen hangers-on crossed the courtyard and enveloped him and bore him away to his suite. Alba’s white-haired body servant, a veteran soldier, came stumping down the stairs toward him. Carlos gripped the duke’s arm. “A word, my lord.”

  “A word is insufficient,” Alba said, suddenly grave now that they were alone. “There is much to say.” He held up his hand to the servant, a silent order to leave them. The old fellow turned and went back up the stairs.

  Carlos’s spirits surged despite his fatigue. “Then His Majesty has granted your request on my behalf?”

  “I couldn’t tell you this, not with Monterra nearby. His Majesty has declined your pension. And expressed some displeasure at me for championing you.”

  The statement was crushing. Alba’s tone more so, his anger unmistakable. Carlos struggled to find words. Declined? Why? Why was he being treated with such disdain, such scorn? He wanted to grab fistfuls of Alba’s collar and demand a civil answer. But he could not argue with a duke, let alone a king. He asked as calmly as he could, “For what reason, my lord?”

  “Because he does not trust you.”

  Carlos flinched. Scorn was bad enough, but this was worse. The outright mistrust of the King? Heads rolled for less. “My lord, I assure you I have done nothing to give His Majesty any cause for—”

  “You married,” Alba snapped. “Remember?” The sharp sarcasm showed he was barely suppressing his rage.

  Carlos could only stare at him. What was the man talking about?

  “Married an Englishwoman. A Thornleigh. Sister of the pirate.”

  Good God. So that was it. Carlos’s loyalty was in question because of his marauding brother-in-law. Adam Thornleigh.

  “That’s right, the pirate baron,” Alba growled. “The one who brought us to the brink of war four years ago when he attacked His Majesty’s pay ship and gave his queen the gold.” Carlos knew the tale. He and Isabel had been at home in England when it had happened. Adam had attacked a ship bound from Spain to the Netherlands carrying gold to pay for Alba’s troops, and when he told Queen Elizabeth the money was a banker’s loan to Philip of Spain she persuaded the banker to loan it to her instead. People at home cheered her for her sly ruse and called Adam a hero. But Alba, outraged, had slapped a freeze on all English assets in the Netherlands. Elizabeth followed suit, freezing all Spanish assets in England. Adam had started a cold war.

  “I have credited you with loyalty to me, Valverde, despite the criminal damage your kinsman continues to wreak upon our shipping. But now Thornleigh has gone too far. He has sunk His Majesty’s ship Esperanza off the Isle of Sark and taken prisoner the nobleman on board, my nephew, Don Alfonso. We have no report of where Thornleigh has gone. I fear for Don Alfonso’s life. So does His Majesty. With such a depraved relative, Valverde, can you wonder at His Majesty’s displeasure with you? How can he trust you? How can I?”

  “I have not seen my brother-in-law for over a year.”

  “Not been in contact with him?”

  “No. I’ve been busy in your service, my lord. Thornleigh does for himself . . . what he does.”

  “And now he has disappeared in the mists of the Channel.” His steely eyes bored into Carlos’s. “My question about trust was not rhetorical. If you hope to win back His Majesty’s confidence you must show me, must prove to me, that you can be trusted. Find out where Thornleigh is. Find out how I can capture him. Then we’ll discuss your reward.”

  It was like smoke clearing on a battlefield, showing the extent of the slaughter and ruin. What Carlos saw was the ruin of his hopes.

  Carlos’s household was abuzz with a morning liveliness he found hard to take. His mind fogged with worry as he walked past the maidservants bustling at setting out breakfast, he didn’t acknowledge their curtsies. The smells of ham and vinegary mustard turned his stomach. His daughter rushed to greet him.

  “Papa!” she cried, bobbing a distracted curtsy to him. “Nico fell!” Nine years old, Nell was tall for her age, almost up to Andrew’s chin, though Andrew, sauntering in behind her, was three years older. Nell was waving a paper. “The doctor has tied sticks to his leg!”

  Carlos tried to focus on what she was saying. Nicolas was hurt? “What’s this?” He took the paper from her. “A letter?”

  “From my lady grandmother. Nico broke his leg!”

  “They’ve probably cut it off by now,” Andrew muttered, a dark jest.

  “Don’t say that,” she shot back.

  Andrew bowed to greet his father. Carlos knew the boy’s jest had sprung from jealousy of his elder brother. Carlos himself had no siblings. His children’s rivalries baffled him. “I hope it’s a clean break,” he said, scanning the Dowager Lady Thornleigh’s letter. He’d seen shattered shinbones in battle. The thought of his son as a lifelong cripple was terrible.

  “He’s fine,” Isabel said as she joined them, still pinning up her dark hair. “My mother says he’s resting and quite comfortable, and complaining that her library has no Holinshed’s Chronicles.”

  “What happened?”

  “He crashed out of a tree,” Nell said, indignant at their lack of horror for the suffering of her favorite brother.

  Isabel said, “He was pruning an apple tree for Mother. Fell off the ladder.” She took the letter from Carlos. “She wrote this two weeks ago, so he’s probably up and walking by now.” She was carefully folding the letter, so carefully that Carlos wondered if she was more anxious ab
out Nicolas than she let on. She looked up into his face. “At the palace all night?” She smoothed a smudge from his cheek with a motherly gesture. “Alba really does take liberties. You look terrible.” Her lips brushed his, and there was nothing motherly in their invitation. “But I’ll forgive him this once,” she whispered, “now that we can leave. I can’t wait to hear.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it. How could he tell her? “You’re all right?” he asked. Yesterday’s execution in the market square seemed ages ago.

  She squeezed his hand in return. “Right as rain, my love.” She tucked the letter into her pocket. “Come, let’s breakfast. You can read all about Nico after.”

  He looked at his children. They stood waiting for him to sit so they could eat. He had no appetite, couldn’t face breakfasting with them as though nothing had happened. “Andrew, did you exercise the gelding?”

  The boy looked startled. “This morning? No, sir, not yet.”

  “Do it.”

  “Now?”

  “Now. He needs it, and you need to master him.”

  Andrew looked hurt at the rebuke. He marched out to the stables. Carlos turned to his wife and daughter, Nell wide-eyed at his sharp tone, Isabel frowning in concern. Carlos silently cursed Alba. “Go ahead, eat,” he told Isabel. “I want to wash.”