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“Because I am old enough to be your grandfather,” he said dourly. “And as stiff in the morning as frozen laundry on a washing line.”
Ned had guessed she would wake before dawn, and he was instantly aware of her, awake but silent. “You’ll want to see sunrise,” he said quietly into the pitch-darkness.
“Can I?”
Outside Ned’s door a ladder led upwards to a battened-down hatch. Ned went first, lifted the hatch, and breathed the cold saltiness of the sea air. He put the cover aside, climbed out, and turned to help her, but she was already up on deck gulping in the clean breeze, her arms thrown wide as if she would have the wind blow through her clothes, blow defeat out of her soul.
The sky was lightening all around them, but the sun was not yet up. Ned raised his hand in acknowledgment to the steersman and led the way fore so that they were facing east, facing England. There was a clean bucket on a frosty rope for sluicing down the deck. Ned lowered it into the sea and felt it tug in his hands. He hauled it back in and put it at her feet. “Best I can do,” he said, and stepped back.
Rowan looked out along the bowsprit to where the horizon gleamed with a cold pale light. She loosened the shirt at her neck; she did not dare stand naked as the ritual demanded, but she splayed her bare toes on the deck and stood tall, swaying slightly at the roll and dip of the ship through the waters. She took a cupped handful of icy water and poured it over her head, over her neck, another full into the face. She tasted the salt and opened her eyes. She whispered: “Great Spirit, Mother Earth, Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun, I thank you. I pray to the four directions…”
Carefully she turned to the four points of the compass, looking out over gray rolling waves east then north, south, and west until she was facing the brighter horizon once more. “I thank you for all my relations: the winged nation, the creeping and crawling nation, the four-legged nation, the green and growing nation, and all things living in the water. Honoring the clans: the deer—ahtuk, the bear—mosq, the wolf—mukquoshim, the turtle—tunnuppasog, the snipe—sasaso. Keihtanit taubot neanawayean.”
The head of a silvery sun was rising from the gray faraway waters as she murmured the prayer. She bowed her head and poured more water over her head, her face, her neck, her breast, as the sun rose. She looked towards it, as if it might tell her how she should survive this extraordinary transition in her life, from one world to another, from one life to another, from one country to another. She had no fear. She feltthe strength in her feet on the scrubbed wooden deck, the powerful beating of her heart, and the limitless confidence of youth.
ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1685
If Livia was nervous, as the Avery carriage drove through the rolling deer park and turned into the great arched doorway, she showed no sign. As the coach rattled through the imposing north gatehouse, the wheels echoing loudly on the cobbles, guardsmen saluting the Avery crest on the carriage door, Livia settled her cape around her, tied the silk ribbons on her hat, and straightened the ribbon bows over her shoulders. All she could see were the tall walls of red brick relieved with white pillars and mullioned windows. The carriage halted and the steps were let down. Livia’s grip was firm on the footman’s arm, her step light on the pavement. The lace edging on her hat did not tremble, the smile on her beautiful face was steady. Her tight bodice hid her breathlessness; the thick silk of her gown and her billowing petticoats swished around her as she followed the new queen’s chief secretary into the first court, across the rigidly formal garden, through inner doors and up the stairs. Finally, the chief secretary nodded to two men-at-arms to throw open the double doors of the queen’s presence chamber and announced: “Lady Livia Avery, Your Majesty.”
The dark-haired queen was seated at the window, looking far younger than her twenty-six years, some fine embroidery in an ivory frame beside her, two maids of honor sorting embroidery silks on low stools beside her and two ladies-in-waiting opposite her. In the corner of the room a lutist and a singer created a gentle warble, enough to mask indiscreet conversations from the hearing of the servants who stood at the buffet of silverware. Queen Mary Beatrice was wearinga deep-red silk gown trimmed with silver lace, cut very low over her breasts and across her arms to show her white shoulders. Her slim neck was loaded with jeweled necklaces, she had diamonds in her ears and chains of diamonds wrapped around her arms. Her dark hair was piled on her head, falling in ringlets to her shoulders. She turned a pale face to the door, but as she saw Livia she lit up. “Oh! Livia! My dearest Livia!” she exclaimed at once in Italian. “You have come! In this terrible weather! You have come to bring the spring!”
Livia sank into a deep curtsey and kept her head down, but the queen raised her at once and fell into her arms. She was slight—beneath the flowing embroidered silks Livia could feel a body as slim as a girl’s. Over her shoulder Livia could see the grim faces of the other attendants as they noted the arrival of a new favorite.
“Carissima,” the queen whispered. “I have longed for you. I will be grateful for all my life that you have come to me.” She turned. “Are Lady Avery’s rooms prepared for her?” she asked. “The best rooms, near mine.”
Lady Isabella Wentworth rose up and dropped a small curtsey to Livia. “Shall I show Lady Avery to her rooms?”
“No!” The queen turned impulsively. “I’ll come myself.” She paused for a moment, shaken by a cough. “You all stay here,” she said, catching her breath. Defying protocol, she took Livia’s hand and the two of them followed Lady Wentworth from the presence chamber, through the privy chamber, through the queen’s bedchamber to a gallery of doors for the ladies-in-waiting. One was already painted with the Avery crest. Livia’s dark eyelashes hid the gleam in her eyes at the triumph, but she said nothing and waited for the footman to dart forward and swing open the door. Lady Wentworth stepped back to allow her queen and Livia to enter first.
Livia’s drawing room had a warm fire in the grate, a pair of silk upholstered chairs before it, an expensive rug on the floor. There was a grand mahogany table with six dining chairs under the window so that she could dine with friends and enjoy the view of the privy gardens and beyond them the rolling lawns of the deer park. There were portraits on the walls and a tapestry depicting a white hart being brought down by huntsmen. There were sconces with candlesand candelabra on the tables holding pure white wax candles. Livia crossed the room and looked out of the window. She allowed herself to imagine the south bank of the river, far away, due east. The poor wharf, the cargo ships bobbing in dirty water, the little home where she had gladly left her son so that she could rise, unhampered, to this greatness. She was pleased she could not see it—it was too far away—around the broad loop in the river, beyond London Bridge, beyond the Tower, far from the wealth and elegance of the royal palaces, far away from her new life.
“Is it all right?” the queen asked humbly.
Livia turned. “It’s quite all right,” she said, smiling. “It’s perfect for me.”
REEKIE WHARF, LONDON, SPRING 1685
Beyond Livia’s horizon, three and a half miles downriver, on the south bank, Ned stood for a moment to look at the Thames in flow, the waters rushing past the quay, the boats riding high, unladen, in the center of the stream.
On the distant opposite bank Ned could see the river wall was being extended, the mud and pebbles of the foreshore enclosed by great beams packed with stone. The green weeds and water had dried out, the wading birds had deserted it. New buildings, streets, slums, hovels were being built on a tumble of stone and rubble. The city was spreading downriver, making more and more wharves for more and more ships, as if trade itself were a new king who could demand selfish changes to England.
Rowan, close behind him, was dressed as a manservant: shoes and woolen stockings on her feet, wool breeches and a linen shirt andwool jacket under a warm traveling cape. A cap pulled low over her cropped dark hair completed the disguise. Ned led the way down the alley that ran between the warehouse and its neighbor, until he came to a lantern door set into the big wagon gates, which were bolted and closed for the night. Inside the yard, he could hear someone bedding down horses, the splash of water being pumped into a bucket, and the bang of the stable door. He put his hand on the iron ring to open the little door, but she saw him hesitate.
“I can hardly go in. I’ve not seen my sister for twenty-five years. I never thought I’d come back.”
He turned the handle, opened the door, and stepped through. It was a prosperous yard, swept clean around raised beds of herbs. There were four big horses nodding over the stable doors, and two carts stored in the cart shed. The double doors that led to the warehouse were safely locked, but the door to the kitchen was half-open. Ned could see the cook bending over a new cast-iron stove. She turned as she heard the lantern gate and came to look over the bolted lower door, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Is it a load?”
“No,” said Ned. “I’ve come to see Mrs. Reekie.”
“If you want the herbs, I can sell them.”
“I’m her brother, come home from New England. I’m Ned Ferryman.”
“Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed and then clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle the oath. “Oh, my word! Well! You’re very welcome, sir. Come in! Come in! You should have come to the front door, not in the yard like a carter. Come in, and I’ll tell them you’re here.”
She swung open the bottom half of the door and shouted to the kitchen maid to come and take their bags. She went surging into the hall, to the parlor at the front of the house, which overlooked the quay and the river. “You’ll never guess who’s in the yard!” she exclaimed to the middle-aged couple in the room. “You’ll never guess.”
