swear.’
‘Oh, a rare wench, indeed. When she comes hither I must see her. Arrange it, Kit. I would talk with a maiden who is fair, chaste and does not wish to deal with men but with natural philosophy. Yes, a rare creature, indeed. Go now, but do not forget our game this evening. I would play with someone who does not fear to beat me. I grow weary of “A splendid stroke, Majesty”—“Oh, a fig for my play, you have bested me quite”—and that after I have been given the game!’
Kit watched him go. Charles held out his hand to the Queen as he passed her and Catherine of Braganza, dumpy, with a pleasant monkey face, was only too pathetically glad to take it. She loved her careless husband and was grateful for the crumbs of his attention. She possessed but one thing to hold him, and that was the promise of a legitimate child, but so far the child had not come, nor, some whispered, was like to. Recently she had been ill and in her delirium had thought herself delivered of the wanted children. Charles had been kind to her, but kindness was all she got. It was his love she wanted, and that she would never have.
Kit was thinking on this as he walked back to his lodgings to change to play tennis, and to rest a little. He met Buckingham coming from his quarters which faced the Privy Garden; Kit’s were not far from the tennis court.
‘Well met, Kit. Hath Old Rowley done with thee?’ Old Rowley was the King’s nickname after a notorious goat, given because of Charles’s many loves. Charles knew of it and, in his sardonic way, was amused by it.
‘Not yet. I am to play tennis with him later.’
‘Sooner thou than I.’ Buckingham became confidential, put his arm through Kit’s. ‘I had news today which should give us all pause. They say that the plague is far worse than the Bills of Mortality suggest. That it grows apace and leaves the warrens of St Giles and Alsatia behind and advances towards the City. I should have had old Antiquis perform an election on it.’
‘His daughter said that they forecast that the plague would come this year, and that it would be a great one…’
‘So, that was the burden of the talk. Small wonder that you progressed no further with her than you did if that was all you could think to speak of!’
Kit shrugged. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that I may have progressed further than I thought. I am not sure, George, how far I wish to pursue this bet, even though by winning I might gain Latter.’
Buckingham laughed maliciously. ‘Too late, man, too late. The die is cast. The bet is made that you will make the fair Celia no longer a maid.’
Once, Kit would have continued to play further with words, but not today. ‘Did Antiquis say how much time might pass before he brought your answers to Whitehall?’
‘Oho!’ Buckingham laughed again. ‘So hot to see her, Kit, that you cannot wait? He said it might be a week, but should you wish to see her sooner, why, you know the way to the Strand. Her father would welcome thee, so pleased was he that the Court now patronises him. Would his pleasure agree to the surrender of his daughter’s virginity, think you?’
Commonly Kit might have continued jousting with him after this fashion, but today he was uneasy, sick at heart, and did not know why.
‘Oh, I can wait,’ he answered. ‘What was it that the old Roman, Fabius by name, said? That the best generalship draws the enemy on by slow degrees to destroy him utterly.’
‘A soldier’s answer,’ responded Buckingham gaily. ‘Well, I live to see that day, Kit, when she comes and you retreat and retreat so that alone, in enemy country, there is no retreat for her, but only surrender. I do not wish thee well, mind, for I covet thy ring.’
He was gone. Quicksilver in mind and body, a man whom few would trust, but old hardships shared bound him and Kit together. Had he told his friend the truth it would have been that he wished to see her again and soon, if only to find that his memory of her was false—that she was but another woman, after all.
Chapter Three
‘I would have had thee wed Robert Renwick, but since you will not, then you will not. I will only ask you to consider such a marriage carefully, for he tells me that he is of a mind to ask you again. You trouble me greatly, daughter, for by the nature of things you must shortly lose me and, in so doing, lose thy protector. More, I am not sure that I ought to take thee to Whitehall this day, but the Duke so commanded and I dare not disobey. He would be a powerful patron. They say that the King is powerfully interested in astrology and, were we to see him, who knows what might happen? The stars foretold a change of fortune for me, but they did not say what shape it will take. They are capricious, as you know.’
Celia and her father were collecting their parchments and papers to take to Whitehall, the Duke’s commissions having been fulfilled. Willem would accompany them to carry them and other necessities, for Adam was hopeful that their visit to Whitehall might be productive of more than thanks and a few guineas. This was his great opportunity to woo and win the mighty. Why, he might even see the King’s Majesty himself.
He was unaware that Charles had already arranged with an amused Buckingham to be present at some point during the Antiquises’ visit—in order to see the astrologer’s daughter, not the astrologer.
Celia saw the last parchment stowed away then said softly, ‘I have little mind to go to Whitehall, Father. The courts of kings, I have read, are easily entered but not so easily left. The stars say that my fortune will change, too, but do not say whether for better or for worse. I want no change. I am happy as I am.’
Adam smiled, then frowned. ‘Oh, child such a statement tempts the gods. When mortals say they are happy, they throw the dice to challenge that happiness. But, come, the wherry awaits us.’
They walked by Essex House, Willem following, down to the Temple Stairs where a wherry had been commissioned and was waiting to take them to Whitehall Palace. The river was the easiest mode of transport in London and was busier than any street. The Thames was both a port and a highway.
Celia had dressed herself carefully in a gown of middling blue. She wore a deep lace collar, but the neckline of her gown was modest and the pin at the throat of it was modest, too. Her shoes were her best and she had dressed her hair a little more loosely than was her wont. She had not put in curl-papers to create the elaborate ringlets of the court ladies and was sure that she would look sadly out of fashion.
What she did not know was that the pure lines of her face, head and neck needed no ringlets. Classic simplicity had its own beauty which owed nothing to artifice.
‘Speak when spoken to,’ groused Adam gently. ‘That was what Master Renwick said. They told him that before he went to Court when the King commissioned a loving cup from him, which, by the by, he hath not paid for. Will the Duke pay for his elections, I wonder, or will he follow his master’s example? Yet, to have the King one’s patron would be a fine thing, money or no. It hath brought Master Renwick many commissions, just to say that the King is pleased to employ him.’
Celia made no answer. She remained quiet as the wherry moved on its way to Whitehall. She was busy taking mental note of all that happened to her. She had seen the palace from the outside, marvelled at its size, at the coming and going of servants, courtiers and officials. Whitehall was the seat of Government as well as the King’s home. Parliament might have tamed the monarch a little but, since his restoration in 1660, they worked in tandem—each side now up, now down.
She had never thought to find herself in it. A servant of the Duke’s
