And I know, then, that Carlo Demirco has reached London.
I feel a sense of relief. Despite the fact that we did not part on the best of terms, it will be useful to have an ally at this court. I just hope that he is faring better at his task than I am at mine.
The next morning I wake early. Dawn has broken, and across the park that separates the Arlington’s house from Whitehall there is a fine, translucent mist. Trees, their outlines hazy as if under layers of muslin, are turning golden yellow, the colour of pears. I open the window there is a bite to the air, and a faint, earthy tang of woodsmoke.
Autumn is coming.
I will have to spend the winter in London, of course. Perhaps next winter too. I wonder if the winters here are as cold as those of Brest. Colder, probably.
Across the misty haze of St James’s Park I see a tall figure, out walking. He must be cold - he is wearing only a short black jacket, unbuttoned, from which a white shirt billows at the waist and cuffs. Spaniels trail at his heels like a living, canine cloak as he covers the damp ground in long, easy strides.
The king.
He is quite alone. I watch him for a moment, then I realise he is headed directly towards the back of the Arlingtons’ house. He is coming here, now.
Lady Arlington bursts in without knocking. ‘The king is on his way. She takes in the situation at a glance — me in my nightdress, staring out of the open window like a schoolgirl. ‘There is no time to waste.’ Behind her a maid runs in, brushes, water, and primping irons all spilling from her arms. ‘Get ready as quickly as you can and join me in the breakfast room.’
‘Of course.’
Lady Arlington nods, and I move to the centre of the room so that the maid can begin her work. The girl curtseys, and I raise my arms so that she can pull the nightdress over my head.
Lady Arlington does not move. For a moment she looks at me, her expression unreadable.
Then she gives another nod, as if I have passed muster. ‘Five minutes, Susan,’ she says to the maid. As she goes down the corridor I hear her giving more orders in a firm, unhurried voice.
‘I would speak to Mademoiselle de Keroualle alone.’
Lady Arlington immediately gets up, curtseys, and leaves without a word. There is no protest of impropriety, of course. To suggest otherwise would be to impugn the motives of a king.
Only the servants, standing at either side of the breakfast sideboard, do not move.
We are sitting on either side of the great table, empty now of its candelabra and its glasses. Charles gestures at my plate. ‘Some coffee? Chocolate?’
‘Thank you. I would prefer tea.’
‘Of course. I understand everyone in Paris drinks tea now. Even Minette.’ Fie grimaces. ‘I mean - my late sister. I called her Minette. It was her childhood name.’
‘I know. She let me read your letters. She used to look forward to those letters more than anything else in the world.’
He takes a deep breath. ‘Tell me how she died.’
*
I tell him everything I know, and as I speak tears begin to stream down his cheeks. Soon he is openly sobbing, his hands brushing away the tears impatientiy, dashing them from his face. I hesitate, wondering if I am distressing him too much, and he gestures wordlessly for me to continue.
I have never seen a man weep so openly in front of a woman. At one point he picks up a napkin and dries his face with it.
‘And - tell me - was she murdered?’ he says when I have finished. ‘Did that brute, or one of his favourites, have her killed so that he could pursue his vices unimpeded?’
Now it is my turn to sound uncertain. There is only one answer I can give, but I am wondering how I can best convince him of it.
‘In truth, he could pursue them unimpeded in any case. And although I am no admirer of her husband, I cannot see how it can have been murder.’
‘But she was so well at Dover. I had never seen her so beautiful, or so well.’
I shake my head. ‘She was in terrible pain. She was simply determined not to let you know of it.’
‘How good we Stuarts are at dissembling,’ he says, almost to himself ‘How little we show ourselves to those who love us most.’
‘She loved you more than anyone alive.’
t
‘And I her.’ He is silent a moment, then puUs sdmething from his shirt. ‘I have brought her letters to me. Will yoU'—’ He cannot finish the sentence, but I understand what he wants. ''Enfmngaisr
‘'Oui. SHI vous plait. ^
I open the first letter and begin to read. ‘‘Mon cherfrere, votn Majeste . . .’
Carlo
Find a room that is cool and clean, free from dirt and distractions of any kind.
The Book of Ices
Eventually Chiffinch found me a place in the palace kitchen. It was much as I imagined Hell might be: a vast, smoke-filled room where four great fires blazed day and night, and the stink of burning flesh hung in the air like a bitter fog. The cooks worked at long tables like seamstresses, banging with their cleavers at mounds of cow carcasses, or slicing morsels from animals so small they would have been discarded as inedible anywhere else. For the EngUsh, it quickly became apparent, were obsessed with meat, and thought it nothing strange to consume it almost daily. This beef or bear or boiled pork of theirs, however, was not actually ‘cooked’ in the sense that a Frenchman or an Italian would use that word; that is to say, made more palatable by the skills of an ingenious chef, with the clever addition of sauces, flavourings, herbs and so on, but was simply pushed onto a spit and roasted until it became tough and tasteless. Vegetables and herbs were apparently almost unknown, and although I was told the king himself sometimes ate raw fruit, in the French manner, this was considered a foreign affectation by his cooks, who would send along with the fruit bowl a board of ‘proper’ English puddings, such as taffety tart, stewed suet or plum duff. The courses were not even served separately: everything went out to the banqueting house in one chaotic rush of service, each cook carrying what she or he had made, soups and roasts and desserts all piled up in a heap for the king’s guests to pick at. Chiffinch was quite surprised
when I told him that in France now the dishes were served one at a time, like the acts of a play.
But the real problem, as far as I was concerned, was that there was nowhere suitable to work. Even if I removed myself to the furthest possible corner of the kitchen, it was going to be impossible to make an ice that was not melted from tht general heat almost as soon as it left the sabotiere. And, of course, there was the additional need to keep my process secret. By the end of the first day I had realised it would be better to take premises elsewhere.
I also considered whether to leave my lodgings at the Red Lion, where in general the food was almost as bad as that given to the king. However, there was one exception to this: each day they served a different kind of pie, and these simple dishes were, rather to my surprise, close to edible - that is to say, they usually contained a vegetable or two, and sometimes herbs such as lovage, marjoram or sage. On one occasion, in a pie of fish pieces simmered in milk, my homesick palate had even discerned a dehcious whisper of tarragon. So I decided to stay, at least for the time being, and enquired from the landlord whether I might rent from him a cellar or cold store for my work. Now that he knew I had such powerful patrons, he hastened to oblige me, and immediately fetched the keys to the cellars.
In fact the cellars turned out to be damp, moulc^y and windowless, while the kitchen was almost as hot as the one at Whitehall. Between the two, however, was a little’kore room or pantry, situated at a turn of the stair so that it was almost underground, and thus quite cool, but with a row of small high windows that admitted plenty of light. A stone ledge ran along one wall; a marble-topped table stood to the side, and at the rear was a windowless alcove where I could keep a stack of ice. I could discern no trace of damp, and the whole room was spotlessly clean.