Page 65 of Dawnlands

WINDSOR CASTLE, AUTUMN 1685

Livia was walking behind the queen and her ladies on the sloping paths of scythed grass that ran down to the river in the North Garden of Windsor Castle. The trees were changing color, the dusty green leaves growing gold and yellow, the gardeners raking up heaps as bright as amber, the lads barrowing them away. The castle, beautiful as a fairy tale, rose behind them one terrace above another. The queen, who dreaded cold weather, was wearing a stole of the finest velvet thrown around her shoulders. Everyone was happy: the execution of Monmouth had confirmed the coronation, the country had backed the royals against a more beloved rival, the people had risen up—only to be crushed down.

Livia elbowed her way closer to the queen.

“The king is to give me some prisoners from the rebellion,” Mary Beatrice announced. “And I shall give some to you.”

At once the ladies clustered around her. “Oh please!” said one. “I have to get money to pay my gambling debts, or my husband will send me home to the country!”

Livia laughed with the others and clapped her hands girlishly, but she knew the queen would reward her without asking.

“They’re calling them the maids of Taunton,” the queen said. “The king has promised them to me—maids for my ladies. A school of girls who went running after Monmouth, and embroidered him a banner!”

“Fools,” Livia said shortly. “Won’t they be executed?”

“Oh no! Girls still in school! Their teacher should have been burned for treason—but she died in prison: smallpox.”

“God moves in mysterious ways,” Livia said soulfully.

“By chance, the girls survived, and the king is to give them to me!”

“And will you give half a dozen of them to me?” the lady-in-waiting with gambling debts begged prettily.

“I will give you all one or two. My secretary Mr. Nipho will see that they are transported and sold for us abroad—I think Barbados. He is managing it all.”

“And me! I want one!”

“And me!” the other ladies cried.

“How many young ladies are there to be transported?” Livia asked.

“About twenty, I think,” the queen said carelessly.

“And how much does each one make, when she is sold on the quayside?”

“There’s a great demand for upper servants,” the queen said. “Mr. Nipho said we might get as much as twenty pounds each.”

“Oh! But how sad for them!” one of the ladies remarked. “And how dreadful to be taken from your home.”

“And sold like a slave on the dock!”

“They’ll come home within ten years,” Mary Beatrice pointed out. “It’s not really slavery.”

One of the ladies managed an exaggerated shudder. “I would rather die than be treacherous to my king.”

Livia gave her a hard look. “I shouldn’t think there will be many traitors ever again,” she said. “Not now they have felt the king’s mercy.”

Livia took the queen’s arm and they walked on. “He’s giving me hundreds of prisoners,” the queen told her friend. “Not just the Taunton maids, but ordinary men who served Monmouth. A small fortune in men. I will see you have some too.”

Livia pressed the queen’s arm. “My greatest reward is saving you when no one else could.”

TAUNTON, SOMERSET, AUTUMN 1685

The judge, the clerks and servants and hangers-on, guarded on all sides by mounted cavalry, as if advancing into a hostile country, swept into town, scattering claimants and mourners into the gutters, and took up their lodgings in the castle and every available room. Johnnie heard the uproar of their arrival as he was waiting for the broker in the common room of the inn. He could not reserve a parlor for his private use; every room in the house was serving as a bedroom, shared by two or even three or four strangers. Johnnie had managed to get a small bedroom cramped under the eaves, and he was already paying for two guests, saying that his servant would join him as soon as he could be found.

The two men found a corner of the parlor, and the broker outlined the business. “You buy each man—or it might be a woman or child, I can’t guarantee what you get, they’re sold by the head and you only discover who you have when you’ve paid.”

“Can you at least guarantee they’re not sick?”