House Of Shadows. Nicola Cornick

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СКАЧАТЬ a very great ruler.’

      ‘I think sometimes that she was a man,’ Elizabeth said.

      Craven looked startled. Then he gave a guffaw. ‘In heart and spirit perhaps. Yet there are plenty of men lesser than she. My father admired her greatly and he was the shrewdest, hardest judge of character I know.’ He refilled the cup with water; offered it to her. Elizabeth shook her head.

      ‘Did not the perpetrators of the Gunpowder Treason intend for you to reign?’ Craven said. ‘They must have believed you could be Queen of England.’

      ‘I would have been a Catholic puppet.’ Elizabeth shuddered. ‘Reign, yes. Rule, most certainly not.’

      ‘And in Bohemia?’

      ‘Frederick was King,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I was his consort.’ She smiled at him. ‘You seek to upset the natural order of things, Lord Craven, by putting women so high.’

      ‘Craven!’ The air stirred, the door of the chamber swung open and Frederick strode in, his cloak of red swirling about him. In contrast to Craven, austere and dark, he looked as gaudy as a court magician. Craven straightened, bowing. Elizabeth felt odd, bereft, as though some sort of link between them had been snapped too abruptly. Craven’s attention was all on Frederick now. That was what it meant to rule, even if it was in name only. Frederick demanded and men obeyed.

      ‘The lion rises!’ Frederick was more animated than Elizabeth had seen him in months. Melancholy had lifted from his long, dark face. His eyes burned. Elizabeth realised that he was so wrapped up in the ceremony that he was still living it. He seemed barely to notice her presence let alone question what she was doing alone in the guardroom with his squire. He drew Charles Louis into the room too and threw an arm expansively about his heir’s shoulders.

      This is our triumph, his gesture said. I will recapture our patrimony.

      ‘The lion rises!’ Frederick repeated. ‘We will have victory! I will re-take Heidelberg whilst the eagle falls.’ He clapped Charles Louis on the shoulder. ‘We all saw the visions in the mirror, did we not, my son? The pearl and the glass together prophesied for us as they did in times past.’

      A violent shiver racked Elizabeth. The mirror and the pearl had shown Frederick a war-torn future. She remembered the flames reflected in the water, turning it the colour of blood.

      ‘The lion is the Swedish king’s emblem,’ she said. It was also Frederick’s heraldic device but she thought it much more likely that it would be Gustavus Adolphus whose fortunes would rise further whilst Frederick would lie where he had fallen, unwanted, ignored. He was no solider. He could not lead, let alone re-take his capital.

      She caught Craven’s gaze and realised that he was thinking exactly the same thing as she. There was a warning in his eyes though; Frederick was frowning, a petulant cast to his mouth.

      ‘It was my emblem,’ he said, sounding like a spoilt child. ‘It was my lion we saw.’

      Craven was covering Elizabeth’s tactlessness with words of congratulation.

      ‘Splendid news, Your Majesty,’ he said smoothly. ‘Do you plan to raise an army to join the King of Sweden’s forces immediately?’

      ‘Not now!’ Elizabeth said involuntarily. The room seemed cold of a sudden, a wind blowing through it, setting her shivering. Her hand strayed to her swollen belly. ‘The baby …’ she said.

      Frederick’s face was a study in indecision. ‘Of course,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I must stay to see you safely delivered of the child, my dear.’ His kiss on her cheek was wet, clumsy. It felt as though his mind was already far away. ‘I will write to his Swedish Majesty and prepare the ground,’ he said. ‘There is much to plan.’

      The cold inside Elizabeth intensified. She tried to tell herself it was only the shock of their fortunes changing after so many impotent years, but it felt deeper and darker than that. She knew with a sharp certainty that Frederick should not go. It was wrong, dangerous. Although she had not seen the future, she felt as though she had. She felt as though she had looked into the mirror and seen into the heart of grief and loss, seen a landscape that was terrifyingly barren.

      ‘The winter is no time for campaigning,’ Craven was watching her face. There was a frown between his brows. ‘Besides, there is much to do before we may leave. Troops to send for, supplies to arrange.’ He stopped, started again. ‘Your Majesty—’

      Elizabeth realised that he was addressing her. The grip of the darkness released her so suddenly she almost gasped. It felt like a lifting of a curse; she was light-headed.

      ‘We should get you back to the palace, madam,’ Craven said. ‘You must be tired.’

      ‘I am quite well, thank you, Lord Craven,’ Elizabeth snapped. She was angry with him. She had thought she had seen something different in him, yet here he was fawning over Frederick like every other courtier she had known. And for all his compliments to her earlier, he spoke to her now as though she were as fragile and inconsequential as any other woman.

      Immediately his expression closed down. ‘Of course, Majesty.’

      ‘Frederick,’ Elizabeth said. ‘If I might take your arm …’

      Frederick was impatient. Elizabeth could feel it in him, in the deliberation with which he slowed his steps to help her up the spiral stair, in the tension in the muscles of his arm beneath her hand. He wanted to be back at the Wassenaer Hof, writing letters, planning a conqueror’s return to Germany. She held him back, with her pregnant belly and her woman’s fears. He was solicitous of her, masking his irritation with concern, but she had known him too long to be fooled. War was coming and that was man’s work.

      Charles Louis trailed along behind them through the scented garden, scuffing his boots in the gravel, his expression sulky. He appeared to have caught none of his father’s excitement. Elizabeth could hear Craven talking to him. Their voices were too low for her to hear the words, but soon Charles Louis’ tone lifted into animation again. His quicksilver volatility was not easy to control and Elizabeth admired the way Craven had been able to distract him.

      The Knights of the Rosy Cross had gone. The gardens were empty; a checkerboard of moon and shadow. Frederick was still talking, of the fall of the city of Leipzig to Gustavus Adolphus, of the destruction of his hated enemy the Spanish general Tilly, of the visions in the mirror, the lion rampant, the walls of Heidelberg rising again, of their future, suddenly so bright.

      Elizabeth crushed her doubts and followed her husband into the Wassenaer Hof. The light enveloped them; for a second there was a hush and then Frederick’s blazing enthusiasm seemed to flare like a contagion through the crowds of courtiers and everyone was talking at once, laughing, lit by feverish excitement even though they did not know why they were celebrating. It was then that the cold came back to her, like the turning of a dark tide, setting her shaking so that she had to clutch the high back of one of the chairs to steady herself. The wood dug into her fingers, scoring the skin.

      Frederick had not noticed. He was too busy thrusting his way through the crowd, turning to answer men’s questions. It was Craven who was watching, Craven who gestured impatiently for some of her women to come forwards to help her.

      ‘Lord Craven.’ Elizabeth put her hand on Craven’s arm to halt him when he too would have hurried away.

      ‘Madam?’ СКАЧАТЬ