Page 170 of Dawnlands

With another scream Mary Beatrice bore down in the bed and, as if to help, Livia plunged forward blocking the view of everyone as the baby slithered in a rush of blood and waters out of the queen’s body. Livia hit the midwife’s hand aside so that she could see the baby’s legs emerging from his mother, and caught sight of a tiny little penis. Dizzy with relief, she stepped back and the midwife drew the baby out of the sheets and held him in her arms.

She made an odd gesture with her hand to her head, and Lady Sunderland immediately repeated the sign to the king. Livia, watching, realized that there was more than one conspiracy around the bed, but a baby boy had been truly birthed, none of the plots had been needed. The child was a boy, the midwife had signaled to Lady Sunderland, she had signaled to the king: they had a papist Prince of Wales.

The cord was still pulsing as the midwife cut it with a knife, and the second midwife drew the afterbirth from the queen’s body, as the queen cried out with her last pain, and then there was a terrifying silence. “I don’t hear the child cry?” Mary Beatrice whispered.

The baby choked, and then cried: a strong wail that made the whole room exclaim.

“Did you hear?” Livia said exultantly to Mary Beatrice. “Do you hear now?”

She bent and kissed her friend’s sweating face and then stepped back, drawing the warming pan from the bed. Madame de Labadie took the baby from the midwife and went to sweep him away to his nursery, but the king stopped her. “What is it?” he asked gruffly.

“What Your Majesty desires,” she replied.

Lord Feversham shouted: “Room for the Prince of Wales!” and everyone was laughing and congratulating the king and following the baby from the room. The king called upon the Privy Councillors to confirm that they had seen the birth of his son and they each swore that they had. Gracefully, helpfully, Livia carried the warming pan down the stairs, through the hall, and up to her private rooms.

Inside, with the door locked, she opened the pan. Amazingly, the baby was still asleep. He was dusty but seemed none the worse for his brief imprisonment. Livia felt a rush of exhaustion that the great gamble was over, that her great crime was not needed. The baby opened his midnight blue eyes and opened his rosebud mouth. His perfect little face flushed red as his eyebrows compressed; with a little gurgle he passed a black sticky mess into the blanket that held him, and he started to cry.

“God,” said Livia with revulsion. “And now I’ve got to get rid of you.”

HATTON GARDEN, LONDON, SUMMER 1688

Londoners learned that the queen had been delivered of a son by a blaze of fireworks and a roar of cannon from the king’s army. The announcement did nothing to quell the riots but brought more people out on the streets in a volatile mix of protests and celebrations. Bonfires to celebrate were set up in the marketplaces, and whole carcassesof meat were roasted on spits, but instead of joyous feasts, they became the rallying point of riot. The anti-papists ate the roast meat and then rampaged, drunk, down the high streets, breaking windows where anyone showed a light to celebrate the birth of the prince.

Alderman Johnson made his way through the streets in his coach with two armed guards riding on the back, and found the Hatton Garden area was quiet. Julia had a glass of Madeira and biscuits served to him in the parlor.

“Your friend Lady Avery must be riding sky-high,” Alderman Johnson remarked to his daughter. “I had a letter from her lawyers this morning.”

“What does it say?” Julia asked her father, looking up from some handkerchiefs she was hemming for Hester’s trousseau.

“Haven’t had time to read it yet,” he said. “It came with such a run of creditors’ notes at the news of a prince that I had no time to do anything but put up our rates, and stuff it in my pocket to bring to you. The prince is already good for business! The rioters will go home, the country will settle down, and we can concentrate on trade. We can outtrade the Dutch and—if we need to—fight them on the ground in the Indies and the Americas. With a prince in hand and perhaps more to come, I expect to see the king take on the Dutch closer to home as well. He’ll support the French against them, and while the two of them are fighting over the Netherlands, we can move in on their overseas markets.”

“What does the letter say, Papa?” Julia persisted more sweetly.

“Oh aye.” Alderman Johnson broke the seal. “I don’t expect any surprises.”

She watched his face grow blank.

“What is it, Papa?”

“Nothing,” he said, a closed look coming over him. “I shall read this in the library. Send your husband in to me as soon as he comes in.”

Julia, too well trained to question her father, sat by the fireside and waited for Rob to come home at midday, while her father reread the letter from Livia Avery’s lawyers.

Sir,

Dowager Lady Avery has given us to understand that her son Matthew was fathered by Dr. Robert Reekie, during her marriage to Conte Alberto Fiori, who was impotent. She has written evidence of this from her physician and is prepared to swear an oath. This information is STRICTLY PRIVATE and CONFIDENTIAL and can go no further than yourself.

Accordingly, the Dowager Lady Avery is (without prejudice) withdrawing her son Matthew Peachey from his betrothal with Miss Hester Reekie, and our negotiations are at an end.

Yours faithfully &c

Struther and Sanders

Alderman Johnson sat in silence by the library fire until he heard the front door open and close, and the footsteps of his son-in-law in the hall.

“Sir?” Rob said as he came in. “This is a welcome visit.”

“I’ll take a glass of brandy,” Alderman Johnson said. “You better had, too.”