Mary Beatrice d’Este, a.k.a. Mary of Modena-James’s second wife-would be sequestered back in these depths somewhere, presumably half out of her mind with misery. Daniel tried not to think of what it would be like for her: an Italian princess raised midway between Florence, Venice, and Genoa, and now stuck here, forever, surrounded by the mistresses of her syphilitic husband, surrounded in turn by Protestants, surrounded in turn by cold water, her only purpose in life to generate a male child so that a Catholic could succeed to the throne, but her womb barren so far.
Looking quite a bit more cheerful than that was Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, who’d been rich to begin with and had now secured her pension by producing two of James’s innumerable bastard sons. She was not an attractive woman, she was not Catholic, and she hadn’t even bothered to pull on green stockings-yet she had some mysterious unspecified hold over James exceeding that of any of his other mistresses. She was strolling down the gallery tete-a-tete with a Jesuit: Father Petre, who among other duties was responsible for bringing up all of James’s bastards to be good Catholics. Daniel caught a moment of genuine amusement on Miss Sedley’s face and guessed that the Jesuit was relating some story about her boys’ antics. In this windowless gallery, lit feebly by some candles, Daniel could not have been more than a dim apparition to them-a pale face and a lot of dark clothing-a Puritan Will-o’-the-wisp, the sort of bad memory that forever haunted the jumpy Royals who’d survived the Civil War. The affectionate smiles were replaced by alert looks in his direction: was this an invited guest, or a Phanatique, a hashishin? Daniel was grotesquely out of place. But his years at Trinity had made him accustomed to it. He bowed to the Countess of Dorchester and exchanged some sort of acrid greeting with Father Petre. These people did not like him, did not want him here, would never be friendly to him in any sense that counted. And yet there was a symmetry here that unnerved him. He’d seen wary curiosity on their faces, then recognition, and now polite masks had fallen over their covert thoughts as they wondered why he was here, and tried to fit Daniel Waterhouse into some larger picture.
But if Daniel had held a mirror up to his own face he’d have seen just the same evolution.
He was one of them. Not as powerful, not as highly ranked-in fact, completely unranked-but he was here, now, and for these people that was the only sort of rank that amounted to anything. To be here, to smell the place, to bow to the mistresses, was a sort of initiation. Drake would have said that merely to set foot in such people’s houses and show them common courtesy was to be complicit in their whole system of power. Daniel and most others had scoffed at such rantings. But now he knew it was true, for when the Countess had acknowledged his presence and known his name, Daniel had felt important. Drake-if he’d had a grave-would have rolled over in it. But Drake’s grave was the air above London.
An ancient ceiling beam popped as the Palace was hit by another gust.
The Countess was favoring Daniel with a knowing smile. Daniel had had a mistress, and Miss Sedley knew it: the incomparable Tess Charter, who had died of smallpox five years ago. Now he didn’t have a mistress, and Catherine Sedley probably knew that, too.
He had slowed almost to a stop. Steps rushed toward him from behind and he cringed, expecting a hand on his shoulder, but two courtiers, then two more-including Pepys-divided around him as if he were a stone in a stream, then converged on a large Gothic door whose wood had turned as gray as the sky. Some protocol of knocking, throat-clearing, and doorknob-rattling got underway. The door was opened from inside, its hinges groaning like a sick man.
St. James’s was in better upkeep than Whitehall, but still just a big old house. It was quite a bit shabbier than Comstock/Anglesey House. But that House had been brought down. And what had brought it down had not been revolution, but the movings of markets. The Comstocks and Angleseys had been ruined, not by lead balls, but by golden coins. The neighborhood that had been built upon the ruins of their great House was now crowded with men whose vaults were well-stocked with that kind of ammunition.
To mobilize those forces, all that was needed was some of that kingly ability to decide, and to act.
He was being beckoned forward. Pepys stepped toward him, holding out one hand as if to take Daniel’s elbow. If Daniel were a Duke, Pepys would be offering sage advice to him right now.
“What should I say?” Daniel asked.
Pepys answered immediately, as if he’d been practicing the answer for three weeks in front of a mirror. “Don’t fret so much over the fact that the Duke loathes and fears Puritans, Daniel. Think instead of those men that the Duke loves: Generals and Popes.”
“All right, Mr. Pepys, I am thinking of them… and it is doing me no good.”
“True, Roger may have sent you here as a sacrificial lamb, and the Duke may see you as an assassin. If he does, then any attempt you make to sweeten and dissemble will be taken the wrong way. Besides, you’re no good at it.”
“So… if my head’s to be removed, I should go lay my head on the chopping-block like a man…”
“Belt out a hymn or two! Kiss Jack Ketch and forgive him in advance. Show these fops what you’re made of.”
“Do you really think Roger sent me here to…”
“Of course not, Daniel! I was being jocular. ”
“But there is a certain tradition of killing the messenger.”
“Hard as it might be for you to believe, the Duke admires certain things about Puritans: their sobriety, their reserve, their flinty toughness. He saw Cromwell fight, Daniel! He saw Cromwell mow down a generation of Court fops. He has not forgotten it.”
“What, you’re suggesting I’m to emulate Cromwell now!?”
“Emulate anything but a courtier,” said Samuel Pepys, now gripping Daniel’s arm and practically shoving him through the doorway.
Daniel Waterhouse was now in the Presence of James, the Duke of York.
The Duke was wearing a blond wig. He had always been pale-skinned and doe-eyed, which had made him a bonny youth, but a somewhat misshapen and ghastly adult. A dim circle of courtiers ringed them, hemming into their expensive sleeves and shuffling their feet. The occasional spur jingled.
Daniel bowed. James seemed not to notice. They looked at each other for a few moments. Charles would already have made some witty remark by this point, broken the ice, let Daniel know where he stood, but James only looked at Daniel expectantly.
“How is my brother, Dr. Waterhouse?” James asked.
Daniel realized, from the way he asked it, that James had no idea just how sick his brother really was. James had a temper; everyone knew it; no one had the courage to tell him the truth.
“Your brother will be dead in an hour,” Daniel announced.
Like a barrel’s staves being drawn together in a cooper’s shop, the ring of courtiers tensed and drew inwards.
“He has taken a turn for the worse, then!?” James exclaimed.
“He has been at death’s door the whole time.”
“Why was this never said plainly to me until this instant?”
The correct answer, most likely, was that it had been, and he simply hadn’t gotten it; but no one could say this.
“I have no idea,” Daniel answered.
ROGERCOMSTOCK, SAMUELPEPYS, ANDDaniel Waterhouse were in the antechamber at Whitehall.
“He said, ‘I am surrounded by men who are afraid to speak truth to my face.’ He said, ‘I am not as complicated as my brother-not complicated enough to be a king.’ He said, ‘I need your help and I know it.’”