Page 179 of Dawnlands

“Yes, yes, the king ordered it before he left, and guards. In case… in case…”

“We wait,” Livia told her. “They might be fighting the battle right now. And we don’t know where.”

That night the king returned to Whitehall, without leading his troops in battle, without even ordering them out of camp, a bloodstainedhandkerchief pressed to his nose, unable to believe that both his sons-in-law had turned against him, and his daughter Anne had run away from home.

“It’s over,” he said heavily to Mary Beatrice. “I can’t fight my own daughters, my heirs.”

“Our son is your heir,” she told him. “You have to fight for him. You have to defend me.”

“Look at me!” he exclaimed. He showed her the bloodstained linen at his face, the constant flow of blood. “I’m bleeding to death, and no one can stop it. It’s heartbreak! All I can do is try to save you and him. I’ve ordered him to be brought back to London. The navy in Portsmouth has turned against me as well. He wasn’t safe there. None of us are safe in England.”

“What?” The queen was horrified. “Where is my son?”

“In a coach, I just said, coming from Portsmouth,” the king said thickly. “The sailors scuttled their own ships when they were ordered to sea to intercept William’s fleet. After all I’d done for them! After holy Mass on my flagship!”

“Where is my son?” she nearly screamed.

“On his way, I said! His nursemaid’s bringing him. As soon as he gets here, you must go to Dover. Our yacht is waiting for you there. And we have one loyal friend: King Louis of France has sent the Comte de Lauzun to assist you. He warned me—I should have—” He took up a clean handkerchief and held it to his nose. It immediately darkened with fresh blood. “The Comte de Lauzun will take you to France, take you to the king. I’ll join you there—unless I can make a last stand, unless I can turn it around.”

The queen looked at him in disbelief.

“But where is William’s army now?” Livia interrupted. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but where is the army? Might they intercept the prince in the royal coach? Or capture us on the way to Dover?”

He made a gurgling noise. “I cannot speak!” he exclaimed. “Everyone betrays me and I am bleeding… bleeding—”

“I won’t run away!” the queen swore. “I’ll stay here with you. Our baby will stay too. We are the King and Queen of England. My own son-in-law can face me on my throne if he dares.”

The king gave an exhausted sigh and slumped to a chair, throwing one bloodstained handkerchief on the ground and taking a napkin from the table. Livia looked in despair from the queen’s determined face, to the king, who looked as if he were weeping blood into the priceless table linen.

ON THE ROAD TO LONDON, WINTER 1688

William’s army was in no hurry to reach London, cheerfully aware that the royal army was not stirring from their camp at Salisbury, leaving the road wide open. Ned, riding on the wagon with cannonballs still packed in their boxes, thought that it was more like an exercise in neutral territory than an invasion or a liberation; there was neither opposition nor an enthusiastic greeting.

“Not like it was before,” he remarked to Robert Ferguson.

“And I thank God for that,” the chaplain replied. “This time we’re winning.”

“The people aren’t with us as they were with Monmouth, as they were with Cromwell.”

The other veteran nodded. “Aye. This is for a change in the law, and perhaps a change in the king, but it’s not for common people. It’s for freedom for the lords, not for the workingman.”

“We’ll bring down a tyrant and a papist king,” Ned observed. “And I’ve spent my life working for that.”

“Aye,” Robert Ferguson told him. “But the new tyrant will be the merchant traders and the rich lords, and the new god will be money. And you’ll find their reign will last for longer than the Stuarts’.”

“A new tyranny,” Ned said grimly, thinking of sugar money, andslavery profits, and the seeping of power towards the rich. “I’ll have brought down one, while seeing the birth of another.”

FAIRMERE PRIORY, SUSSEX, WINTER 1688

“I’m going to have to go back to London,” Alys told Matthew, Hester, Mia, and Gabrielle, at the breakfast table. “Will you be all right here without me for a week or so? Captain Shore is due home at the end of the month, and I can’t have him coming home to a dark wharf. Besides, he’ll be bringing cargo, and I have to get it safely stored.”

“Of course, Nonna,” Gabrielle said easily. “We can manage here without you.”

Alys was only slightly reassured. She had timed her announcement to her granddaughters at breakfast, so that she could tell Julia Reekie later, when she emerged from her bedroom at midmorning. Julia would not welcome the news that she was to be in the Priory with the four young people. So far, she had used a string of imaginary ailments to avoid seeing them, and when forced to dine with them or sit in the same room with them she had been openly frosty. Hester was in disgrace with her mother for the failure of her betrothal, which Julia put down to the inefficiency of the lawyers. Matthew was despised as she blamed him for exaggerating his Avery inheritance.

“It’s bound to be a bit awkward for you,” Alys said tentatively.

Matthew dipped his head so he did not meet anyone’s eye, and the girls made sure not to giggle. “A bit,” he said quietly.