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“No, it’s not that. Can we go to a coffeehouse? I need to talk to you.”
“I’m tired,” Rob said. “I’ve been up all night and I stink. I’ve doneno good but brought another orphan into this world where there are so many already. We’ll get a drink and then I’ll go home.”
Rob led the way into an inn. It was almost empty; no one wanted to be out on the damp streets with gangs of men roaming around swearing that they would string up papists and lynch priests. Matthew seated himself beside the fire, where they would not be overheard. Rob went into the yard to wash, and then came to the fireside, pulling down his sleeves, and dropped into the high-backed settle.
“Your best wine,” he said briefly to the landlord.
“I have an excellent Bordeaux…” the man started. “Or a spiced sweet wine from Venice?”
“The Bordeaux,” he said, as if he did not want to hear of Venice.
“Something to eat? I can send out for a hot dinner, anything you might like?”
“I’ll take some soup and bread and cheese,” the older man said. “Matthew, d’you want anything?”
“The same.”
The landlord produced a bottle of wine, poured the glasses. The doctor raised his glass to Matthew and drank deeply.
“I’ve been asked to speak with you. It’s a delicate matter,” Matthew began.
Rob was guarded. “Is it your delicate matter?”
“No, sir. It’s someone else.” He leaned forward. “It’s the queen,” he said.
“Then I doubt that I can help you,” Rob replied. “I’m not a court physician.”
Matthew leaned closer. “The queen is near her time,” he said quietly. “She wants a boy, she wants to ensure a safe birth.”
“Every woman in England wants a boy and a safe birth.”
The landlord laid a cloth on the little side table and put down two bowls of soup, a trencher with a loaf cut into big pieces, and some yellow cheese, the sweat glistening on the side.
“Her Majesty requires my services, does she?” Rob inquired sarcastically. “And sent you to the Clerkenwell Bridewell to find me, with my previous patient going out of the back door to a pauper grave inbloodstained rags?” Rob finished his bowl of soup and took another hunk of bread. “What do you want, Matthew?” he asked.
“My mother sent me,” Matthew confessed. “To ask you what she might do to make sure. The queen is near her time now—she has to have a boy to save the throne.”
“London’s up in arms. Is the rest of the country rising?”
Matthew nodded. “But if she has a boy, then the Stuart line of succession is guaranteed and the kingdom can be at peace. A live Stuart baby will bring the country back to the king and to God.”
“If he’s going to do so much for God, then God had better provide him,” Rob said bluntly.
“My mother is asking you to provide him,” Matthew said so quietly that Rob had to lean forward to hear him. “She’s asking for you to give us a baby boy, a newborn boy that we can put in the bedchamber, in the royal cradle. You had one born this very evening. My mother wants one like that.”
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1688
The danger from the rioters was so great that they did not dare to move the queen until midnight under a waning moon and a cloudy sky. The earlier rain had driven many from the streets, and a mist coiled up like smoke from the river.
A closed sedan chair stood ready for the queen, a hot brick on thefloor to warm her feet, thick blankets and pillows on the seat so that she should be cushioned from the roll of the chairmen’s walk.
Livia and Mary Beatrice came down the stairs and found the chairmen and the chair drawn up under the arch of the privy gateway. Livia helped the queen into the chair, wrapped her up, pulled up her hood so that her face was hidden, and kissed her cheek.
“I’ll meet you there,” she said. “They say I cannot walk beside you for fear of attracting attention.”
“Are my other ladies already there?”
“Yes, and the king. And some of the gentlemen are here to escort you and a whole company of guards.”
