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Chapter 5

The afternoon was clear and cold along the Thames. A weak sun shone in an almost white sky, and there was the smell of snow in the air. The boatmen out on the river slowed as they passed the palace of Whitehall in order to catch a glimpse of the king and his court as they took their afternoon stroll. Wrapped in a peacock blue velvet cloak trimmed in rich marten, Fancy walked a step behind the king, whose silver-topped walking stick made a crunching sound in the gravel each time it touched the ground.

“Make way! Make way!” a shrill voice sounded behind her and Fancy found herself pushed aside by Lady Castlemaine. “This is not your place,” Barbara Villiers said haughtily.

“Nor is it yours any longer, madame,” Fancy quickly replied. “I am where I was asked to be. You are not.”

Lady Castlemaine stopped in her tracks, as did Fancy, and the entire court behind them. “How dare you speak to me in that manner, mistress!” she snarled. Her tone was scathing, and older ladies than Fancy had been driven to tears by that icy timbre.

“You are rude, madame,” Fancy replied. “Your position does not entitle you to be uncivil, and mannerless, although you believe it does.”

Barbara Castlemaine shrieked at these words and raised her hand to slap Fancy. “How dare you address me at all,” she screamed, “let alone attempt to reprimand me! I am Lady Castlemaine, and you but the child of an Irishman and the woman foolish enough to wed him, losing a great estate in the doing!”

Fancy caught the duchess’s hand before it could deliver the blow. Her fingers wrapped strongly about her antagonist’s wrist. She looked Barbara Castlemaine directly in the eye. “My mother, madame, preferred to keep her good name and took my father’s most honorable name as her own in marriage, as opposed to the disgraceful behavior you have exhibited.” Fancy loosed the wrist she held.

Now the king stopped, but he did not turn around. There was a small smile upon his lips, however.

Barbara Castlemaine gasped and grew red in the face as she attempted to say something, but before she might, another voice entered the fray as a third lady, garbed in a cherry red velvet cloak trimmed with gray rabbit’s fur came forward to put herself between the two women.

“Well, my lords, and my ladies,” the new arrival said, a most mischievous lilt to her voice, “here is a sight you will not likely ever see again. The king’s highborn whore, his well-born whore, and his most assuredly lowborn whore all in one place at the same time.” She laughed. The tension broken, the king and the court laughed with her.

The king turned about. “Nellie!” he scolded gently, but he was still laughing even as he admonished her.

“Will you allow that guttersnipe to speak to me like that?” Lady Castlemaine demanded in strident tones.

“Will you let that termagant speak to me like that?” Nellie Gwyn mocked her opponent. Then she looked at Fancy. “You are very beautiful,” she said. “Can you share him peaceably with me, Mistress Devers?”

“I can,” Fancy agreed. “Shall we walk together, Mistress Gwyn?” She offered her arm to the young actress.

The king chuckled, well pleased. He disliked scenes such as the one that Barbara Villiers had just instigated. He also appreciated the fact that his two new young and delightful mistresses had publicly agreed to get along. Life was so much easier when the ladies did not disagree over him, the king thought as he began to stroll once more along the riverbank. Then he stopped and turning, said to Lady Castlemaine, “Get you gone from my sight, madame. I would not see you again at court until after Twelfth Night. If then.” Turning his back on the angry woman, he moved on again, calling to Fancy and Nell to walk with him.

Behind him the court moved past and around the Lady Castlemaine until she was left standing alone with only her small African page by her side. The boy waited nervously for instructions, bracing himself for the blow that was sure to come, for he could see his mistress’s temper was high. But suddenly she seemed to shrivel and turning began a lonely retreat back to the palace, the page scampering in her wake.

Lady Castlemaine contemplated exposing Mistress Devers to the queen, but she quickly realized that Her Majesty probably already knew that the king was bedding not just that common little actress, but his cousin’s beautiful niece as well. Except for a brief time early in his marriage, the king always treated the queen with the utmost affection and respect, both publicly and privately. After the initial shock of realizing her husband was a man of vast sexual appetites who would never deny himself, Queen Catherine had come to accept his peccadilloes. She even accepted the children the royal mistresses bore the king, and whom he proudly acknowledged.

Barbara Villiers was loath to accept that Charles Stuart was through with her. Defeat had never been easy for her. She would bide her time. He would eventually become bored with the guttersnipe and with his latest conquest, whom the court wits had now begun to call the king’s Fancy. After all, Barbara Villiers reasoned, she and the king had been together for a very long time.

The king liked walking even on a cold day, and eventually many who began with him dropped away, returning to the comparative warmth of the palace. Fancy, however, born a country girl, was one of the few who could keep up with Charles Stuart.

“Come visit me later,” she invited Mistress Gwyn, who finally decided to return to Whitehall.

“I will!” the young actress replied.

“You were kind to Nellie,” the king noted as they walked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Fancy wanted to know.

“She was born in a house here in London, little better than a brothel,” he told her.

“You have accepted her,” Fancy noted. “And she is amusing, isn’t she? Besides, Your Majesty, I do not expect you will keep either of us around forever. Why would I quarrel with her over your favor? It is a well-known fact that Your Majesty’s heart is almost as big as his—” She stopped, and her eyes twinkled when she looked up at him. “Besides, you are a king, and kings I have been told are permitted certain behaviors that we mere mortals are not.”

“You always surprise me, Fancy,” he replied. “Your lineage is quite excellent, and yet you do not behave quite like a lady of your background and blood should. Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” she answered him, “but perhaps my having been born in the Colonies has something to do with it, Your Majesty. Society here is so formal. Society in the Colonies, while proper, is not like it is here. We are more informal.”

“It is odd to be king over a land you have never seen nor will ever see,” Charles Stuart said. “Especially now that I know you.”

“I think I am coming to like England better,” Fancy told him.

They finally reversed their direction and began the return to the palace. The winter sun was already setting, and torches had been lit along the pathway. A wind had begun to blow off the water.

“It will snow soon,” Fancy said.

“I will join you late tonight, my darling colonial,” the king replied, kissing her lips softly before they entered the building.

“I shall await you,” she responded, and then turned away as the king hurried off down one corridor, and she another. Fancy found her cousins waiting for her when she entered her apartments. They were seated, drinking chocolate and eating iced cakes. She laughed to see them like little girls on the floor before the fire, their pretty faces smeared with pink icing and their hot chocolate. “Are you quite comfortable, Cousins?” she asked them, handing her cloak to Bess and joining them.

“We need to change our gowns here tonight,” Cynara said. “There is to be a wonderful masque directed by the lord of Misrule. It will take too long to have to go home, and so we brought our dresses here.”

“Of course you may change here,” Fancy told them, “but you cannot come back afterward for the king has told me he is coming tonight.”

“We will go home directly,” Cynara promised. “Whatever we leave behind can be collected tomorrow. You were quite wonderful this afternoon the way you stood up to my Lady Castlemaine. She is so rude!”

“It comes from all the privilege she has been accorded,” Fancy said. “One must never allow such perquisites to be considered a prerogative. My mother always said that one meets the same people on the descent as one did when climbing to the top. My lady Castlemaine is quite overbearing. She is not the queen, nor does the king favor her thusly.”

“They say he doesn’t even sleep with her anymore,” Diana said.

“I would not know if that is so,” Fancy replied to her cousin. “It is not my business to query His Majesty over such things.”

“Are you in love with him?” Cynara asked.

“No,” Fancy answered honestly. “I am very fond of him, and he is very good to me. I enjoy the pleasure our bodies give to each other. I think we are friends. If you fall in love with a man, you find yourself at his mercy. I shall never allow that to happen to me again.”

“Is his manhood unusually large as is rumored?” Cynara queried.

“Cyn!” Diana half-shrieked, blushing.

“Well, do not tell me you haven’t heard the stories,” Cynara rejoined. “We all have.” She turned her gaze to Fancy. “Is it truth, or is it fiction, Cousin?”

“He seems a big man, but then he is big all over,” Fancy said to her two cousins. “He is certainly larger than my husband was, but then I have little else to compare him with, Cynara.”

“He’s bigger than your average gentleman,” said another voice, and Nell Gwyn sauntered into their midst. “In fact, he’s right huge, and I’ve seen enough manly cocks in my day to make such an observation.”

“Bess, get Mistress Gwyn a cup of chocolate,” Fancy instructed her servant. “Will you have a cake, Nellie? My cousins have left us a few upon the plate.”

“Thank ye, and I will,” the young actress said with an impudent grin. She sat down before the fire with them. Her hazel eyes were bright with curiosity. “That was quick of you this afternoon,” she noted. “I don’t think anyone, not even the king hisself, has ever put the termagant in her place as you so neatly did. It did my heart good, and that’s a truth.” Reaching out she took one of the little cakes and popped it in her mouth, chewing it up, and swallowing it down.

“I am better born than she,” Fancy noted, “and even if I weren’t, I much dislike being spoken down to by a woman like that. She is an appalling opportunist.”

“Are we much better?” Nellie asked.

“Aye,” Fancy said. “At least we are honest in our desires. We do not pretend to be anything other than what we are, do we?”

Nell Gwyn nodded slowly. “Aye, and that’s a truth,” she agreed. “I was born in a tavern that was as much a brothel as a drinking house. Me mum told me if I was going to be a whore I should be a rich man’s whore for the pay was better.” She laughed. “I became an orange girl at the theater when I was ten, and I saw the fancy ladies and their gentlemen. I realized me mum was right so I became an actress.”

“They say you sing and dance better than any,” Diana murmured.

“You are the one they call Siren, aren’t you? I have heard it said that even your rivals have no bad word to say about you. Have you yet decided which of those poor young gentlemen you will favor with your hand, my lady?”

Diana laughed. “I am not yet ready to choose a husband, Mistress Nell,” she told the actress. “My cousins and I have just come to court, and I am having far too much fun.”

Nellie nodded. “Enjoy it while you can, my lady.” Her eye then turned itself upon Cynara. “You had best beware the game you think to play with Harry Summers. He devours little girls like you.”

Cynara actually blushed, but then she said spiritedly, “I can take care of myself, Mistress Nell.”

Nellie shook her head. “He’s a right bad ’un, my lady. They do not call him Wickedness for naught.” She sipped her chocolate. “Did the king give you these apartments, Fancy?”

“He did,” Fancy admitted.

“I want a house,” Nellie replied, “and I’ll not settle for any less. Your family has a house here so it don’t matter to you, I expect. And then, too, one day you will marry again and have another house. But poor lasses like me must struggle for our own. I expect that when I give the king a child, he’ll give me my house.”

“Do you think you’ll have a child?” Cynara asked, fascinated.

“Of course! The king is as prolific as a rabbit when it comes to spawning bastards. All his women seem to be as fecund and fertile as a well-ploughed field except for our poor queen.” Nell lowered her voice. “You know they say that the duke of York’s father-in-law pushed for the Portuguese marriage knowing the bride was barren. His daughter is wed with the duke, and he wants his grandchildren to rule after our good king and his brother. They say when the king’s mother learned that Prince James had married Anne Hyde she wept for days. Not that she could have done anything about it, and the bride ripening with a babe even before the marriage lines were spoken.”

Fancy was absolutely fascinated with these tidbits of gossip Nell Gwyn was so content to share. Her two cousins had probably heard it all before, but new to England, Fancy had not. She had never met anyone like Nell Gwyn in all of her life, but she had immediately liked the young actress who was her own age. Nell might be a bit rough about the edges, but she was sensible and a great deal of fun. I’ve made a friend, Fancy thought and she was pleased with the knowledge.

Christmas came and went, and then Twelfth Night passed. The next event the court would celebrate with enthusiasm was the feast of Saint Valentine, patron of lovers.

“He ought to be patron of this court the way everyone carries on,” Nellie Gwyn said publicly, causing the king to laugh aloud with the memory of it as he and Fancy lay abed.

“She has a wicked wit, our Nell,” Charles Stuart, the king, remarked.

“I am not certain I find it flattering that you discuss other women while lying in my bed, caressing my breasts,” Fancy murmured.

“Are you jealous?” he tensed her, kissing her round shoulder.

Fancy considered a moment, and then she said, “Aye, I believe I am, Your Majesty.”

“Do you love me?” he asked her.

“Aye,” she said slowly, “but not in the way you would think a woman loves a man,” Fancy told him.

“How then?” he queried, curious.

“I love you in the same way you love me. I enjoy our passion. I treasure our friendship. I can never be more to you, Your Majesty, than friend. While many women I realize could not accept such a state of affairs, if I may be allowed the pun, I can.”