Page 178 of Dawnlands

“But why can’t we go with him now? Why can’t we all go together?”

“Father Petre says we must not look as if we are running away. When the king marches out of London, we have to stay here.”

“But when is he going?” Livia took a breath and tried to sound calm. “Surely every day that he delays, more people join William? William gets closer?”

“I think he’s going tomorrow,” the queen said wretchedly. “But nobody tells me anything. Anyway, Prince James is to go tomorrow, and we will follow later.” She was struck by a sudden fear. “You will come with me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Livia said. “Of course. Dearest, of course.”

“The king called all his officers to him and said that if they were going to desert him, they should do it now, and not on the field of battle. Isn’t it unbelievable? He asked them to leave him now, if they are not faithful.”

“And Princess Anne?” Livia asked, naming the younger daughter. “Did she know all about it, like her sister? Is she faithless?”

“Oh, Anne would never betray her father,” the queen assured her. “And now she thinks she is with child again. She’ll stay safely in her rooms here. And her bosom bow Sarah Churchill’s husband is one of the king’s best officers, he swore that he would never leave the king. They’ll all face danger together.”

“We’ll be facing danger here,” Livia said, unmoved at the thought of the king and his faithful adherents marching out to Salisbury and leaving them in riotous London with a bonfire at every corner and the queen’s effigy burning before the palace. “Probably worse for us. And we don’t have an army.”

The king said a mournful farewell to Mary Beatrice and took his coach to the west country with his cavalry in full support and his infantry following. He stayed the night at the bishop’s palace in Salisbury and collapsed with a nosebleed that nothing could stop. The next day he was even worse, constantly hemorrhaging, and in the night, the entire royal cavalry, led by his other faithless son-in-law, Princess Anne’s husband, George, and the king’s false friend General John Churchill, slipped away from camp and went over to William’s army.

Blood poured from the king’s nose, he could not ride, and did not dare be seen by his troops bleeding without a wound. William and his forces were said to be at Exeter; but the royal army did not march on them. Instead, the army of England camped, unmoving, as if frozen in the snow at Salisbury; and in the wintry stillness, not believing their luck, the Orange army started to march, with more and more confidence, up the old road to London.

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, AUTUMN 1688

“The Princess has been kidnapped!”

Livia was shaken awake by her maid. “What?”

“Princess Anne has been kidnapped and stolen away in the night. Some say the queen has had her murdered! Or that William has had her seized out of her bed!”

Livia threw a robe over her nightgown, crammed her feet into slippers, and ran through the palace to the queen’s rooms. The queen was sitting up in bed, looking like a lost girl, a cap of lace on her head, her hair in her nighttime plait.

Livia climbed on the bed and the two women clung to each other.

“Did you know?”

Mutely, the queen nodded.

“Leave us!” Livia snapped at the maid. To the queen, she said: “Has she run away?”

“She came to see me last night,” Mary Beatrice whispered. “She said she dared not face the king because her husband, George, was in league with William. I promised that we would forgive her and George too. She thought he would treat them like Monmouth: makethem beg forgiveness and then behead them anyway. She was mad with fear.”

“And where’s her husband, George, now, and Sarah Churchill’s husband?”

“What? With the king at Salisbury, of course. D’you think William would dare to steal Princess Anne out of her own bed?”

“No,” Livia said grimly. “I bet that all four of them—Princess Anne and her precious favorite and their two husbands—have gone over to William. It’s nothing to do with not daring to face her father, they’ll have planned this from the beginning. She’s probably plotted with Mary from the moment you conceived.”

“No!” Mary Beatrice was horrified. “She wept in my arms, she said she was sorry for ever being unkind. She said she was torn between her husband and her father.”

“That was good-bye,” Livia said bluntly. “I bet she’s halfway to Exeter.”

“It will break His Majesty’s heart if Princess Anne has betrayed him like her sister.”

“It’ll give William the keys to the kingdom, if George and Churchill have taken their regiments to him.”

“What do we do?”

“What can we do but wait till we hear of the battle?” Livia bit her lip. “You have a carriage ready to take us to Portsmouth?”