House Of Shadows. Nicola Cornick

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       London, February 1662

      She dreamed about the house on the night before she died. In the dream she felt as insignificant as a child; a miniature queen clad in a cream silk gown embroidered with gold. The collar prickled the nape of her neck as she craned her head to gaze up, up at the dazzling white stone of the house against the blue of the sky. It made her dizzy. Her head spun and the golden ball that adorned the roof seemed to plunge like a shooting star falling to earth.

      Beyond the walls of her bedchamber crouched the city; filthy, noisy and seething with life. But in her dreams she was far from London; she had followed the wide ribbon of the Thames upriver, past the hunting ground at Richmond, and the great grey walls of Windsor, to a place where two rivers met. She took the narrower path through drowsy meadows thick with daisies and the hum of bees, for in her dream she was a summer princess, not a winter queen. The river became a chalk stream that bubbled up from springs deep in the dappled woods until finally she burst out of the shade and onto the highlands, and there was the house in a hollow of the hills, a little white palace fit for a queen.

      Her lips moved. One of her women, weary, anxious, attentive, bent to catch the whisper. It could not be long now.

      ‘William.’

      It caused consternation. She had sent him away, her cavalier, told her servants to bar the door against him.

      ‘Madam …’ The woman was uncertain. ‘I don’t think—’

      The queen’s eyelashes flickered. Her eyes, blue-grey, were clear, imperious.

      ‘At once.’

      ‘Majesty.’ The woman curtsied, ran.

      The room was hot, windows and doors closed, fire roaring. She drifted between sleep and waking, on the fringes of shadow. Outside, dawn was breaking over the river, the water rippling with a silver wake. It was unseasonably mild for February and the air felt heavy, waiting.

      He came.

      She heard the stir, felt the cool shift of the air before the door closed again, sealing them in.

      ‘Leave us.’

      No one argued, which was good because she was too tired for arguments now. Her eyes would not open. In the silence she could hear everything though; the hiss of the fire as a log settled deeper in the grate, the creak of the floorboards beneath his boots as he crossed the room to her side.

      ‘Sit. Please.’ It was an effort to speak. There was no time for discussion now, or apologies, even if she had wished to make them, which she did not.

      He sat. Now that he was close she could smell on him the night cold and the scent of the city. She could not see him but she did not need to. She knew every plane of his face, СКАЧАТЬ