Tidelands

It was chaos inside. The king was a picky eater, but his importance had to be advertised by serving twenty different dishes at every meal. It was a strain on the provincial cooks, who were running out of recipes and ingredients. There were a few guards that James could see through the open door to the dining hall, but their task was to follow the king when he walked abroad, not to prevent anyone from coming into the house. The king’s own servants were responsible for keeping his rooms free of unwanted strangers and admitting noble guests, but they were newly appointed and did not know their way around the rambling house, nor friend from stranger. The king had added half a dozen courtiers to his entourage since being released from the castle, and they too had their servants and hangers-on who came and went without challenge. There were too many strangers for anyone to notice another.

James waited for a few moments in the garden, watching the disorderly service, and how the servers ran to and fro from the kitchen, through the dining hall, and up the stairs to the king’s rooms. Then he took off his hat, straightened his jacket, and boldly went through the back door as if he belonged there. It was stifling: there was a roast turning on the spit over the fire, saucepans bubbling on little braziers of red-hot charcoal, vegetables stewing by the fireside, and bread being shoveled from the ovens. The servers were rushing in and out, demanding dishes for their own tables, sometimes snatching a dish intended for Mr. Hopkins’s table. Mr. Hopkins’s cook was among it all, trying to keep order, her apron stained, her face sweaty with anxiety and heat.

“The king’s carver,” James said to her, respectfully. “Can I assist you, Cook?”

She turned in relief. “Lord, I don’t even know what he’s had yet. Have you not taken the joint up to him?”

“I am here for it now,” James said smoothly.

“Take it! Take it!” she exclaimed, gesturing to a leg of lamb that stood on the table being dressed clumsily by a kitchen server with bunches of watercress.

“This is for the lords!” the server exclaimed.

“Take it!” She thrust it at James. “And tell me if anything is missing from his table.”

James bowed and went through the door, past the guard at the foot of the stairs, and up to the door of the king’s rooms. The porters at the royal door hesitated, but James held the dish high and said, “Quick! Before it gets cold!” and walked unhesitatingly towards the closed door, so the porters threw it open for him.

They closed it behind him, and James, never hesitating for a moment, walked into the king’s dining room and put the dish on the table before him.

The servant behind his chair, the page holding his gloves, the server with the wine, his fellow with the water did not look twice at James as he took up the long sharp knife and carved paper-thin slices of lamb and fanned them out on the Hopkinses’ best silver plate. He bowed and put the plate before the king, leaning over his shoulder. With his face so close to his ear that he could feel the tickle of gray ringlets and smell the French pomade, he whispered: “Midnight, tonight. Open your door.”

The king did not turn his head and gave no sign of hearing.

“Clarion.” James said the password that he had been given from France, the password that said that the plot came from the queen, Henrietta Maria herself.

The king lowered his head as if he was saying grace, and his hand, hidden beneath the table, made a small gesture of assent. James walked backwards to the door, bowed his head to his knees, and withdrew.

Back at the Old Bull inn, the boys were eating sugared plums and cracking nuts, and jumped up as he came in.

“Is there a fair?” Rob asked. “It’s so noisy.”

“There’s a market and some strolling players,” James said. “We can go and see what’s going on.” He found that he was grinning broadly, almost laughing in his relief that the first stage, getting access to the king, had been so easy. He had been planning this and working with great men to consider every step, yet in the end he had simply walked towards a door and the porter had opened it for him. He almost did not care that he had no ship. If the luck was running his way, it would run all the way to the high seas and the rendezvous with the prince’s fleet.

“Does the king come out again tonight?” Walter asked.

“No, he only waves from his window before his dinner and then they close the shutters for the night. But we might see him tomorrow. I think he walks out in the morning,” James said, knowing that the king would be on the prince’s ship at dawn. “He goes to church.”

“Is he free to go anywhere?” Walter asked.

“When parliament decided to make an agreement with him, they had to release him so that he could sign the documents as a free man. Now he can go anywhere that he likes on the island; but he has given his word not to leave.”

“Is there a dancing bear?” Rob demanded. “I’ve never seen a bear.”