‘Maria?’ Juana woke with a start. The room was lighted: Mrs. Brett must he worse. ‘I’ll come at once.’ She sat up in bed, was suddenly, horribly aware of hooded figures all round her, of movement behind her, felt a sharp blow on the side of her head and plunged into unconsciousness.
When she next woke, it was broad daylight. What an incredibly vivid dream. She reached out for the glass of water that always stood by her bed. It was not there. This was not her room. Not a dream: reality. Terror filled her to overflowing. If she started to scream, she would not be able to stop. She put her hand to her mouth and bit it hard. She was not bound. She was lying in a luxurious bed whose heavy scarlet curtains cut off her view of all but a thin slice of what appeared to be an equally ornate bedroom. What in the world?
She sat up to look about her and at once a woman’s figure appeared from behind the bed curtains. A complete stranger, this old, old woman, brown and wrinkled and beyond age as only a Portuguese peasant woman can become. She smiled broadly (could it be affectionately?) at Juana. ‘At last,’ she said. ‘You are better, senhora?’
Better? Remembering, Juana put a tentative hand to the side of her head, and winced.
The old woman clucked her sympathy: ‘A terrible bruise,’ she said. ‘Let me bathe it for you, my Princess.’ She bustled away behind the bed curtains, to return in a moment with a cloth wrung out in spirits of lavender with which she very gently soothed away the pain. ‘You are better?’ she asked again, with real anxiety.
‘What’s happened? Where am I?’ Juana’s thoughts had been scurrying in so many directions at once that she could hardly get the words out. But, surely, her first terror, of the Sons of the Star, must be unfounded? It was all fantastic, incredible: dream – or nightmare?
‘In my master’s house, of course,’ answered the old woman. ‘And safe, thank God and his strong arm. Who else would have dared attack those wicked ones – even for you, my Princess?’ She lowered her voice on the words ‘wicked ones’.
‘The Sons—’
‘Hush! It’s not safe; even here. If they could carry you off from your room at the castle, senhora, they can do anything. That’s why you are to stay here, safely locked in, till my master returns.’
‘Your master?’
‘Senhor de Mascarenhas, Your cousin, senhora, who adores you. “Look after her,” he told me, “like the Princess she is. Tell her I will return to sup with her this evening. Tell her she is my Queen.” Those were his words, senhora. He should be home soon. Do you think you are strong enough to get up and dress?’
‘He saved me?’ She was still trying to sort things out.
‘From a whole gang of masked ruffians. I don’t need to name them – He’s wounded, of course, but nothing to signify; not my master. He had affairs to attend to, or he’d have stayed himself till you waked. He’ll be back without fail, he told me, for dinner. You’ll be able to join him, senhora?’
‘I don’t see why not. I don’t understand anything.’ Juana pushed back the bedclothes. She was still in the cambric nightgown she had put on the night before. The night before?
‘How long have I been unconscious?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, senhora. He brought you home this morning. They must have carried you off last night. Thank God he was there to save you.’
‘Yes.’ It was all extraordinary, fantastic … ‘But I’ve no clothes.’
‘There are clothes here, senhora. Clothes for a Queen. Let me ‘ help you.’
Juana was glad of her support, the ground shook under her for a moment, then steadied. ‘There.’ She stood by herself and looked about the room. It was furnished with immense luxury in the old-fashioned Portuguese style of cut velvet and flounces. The huge door, she saw, was bolted securely on the inside.
The old woman followed her eyes. ‘It’s locked on the outside too,’ she said. ‘Just for safety’s sake. My master took the key.’
The clothes that hung in a huge closet struck Juana as oddly old-fashioned. And yet the stiff silks and brocades seemed quite new and unworn. ‘Whose are they?’ she asked as the old woman helped her into a stiff, dark taffeta.
‘Yours for as long as you need them, senhora.’ It was hardly an answer, but Juana had more important things to think of.
‘My poor family,’ she said. ‘They’ll be mad with worry. Or did Senhor de Mascarenhas send to them?’
‘I’m sure he has done everything that is necessary.’ Once again it was not quite an answer.
Juana moved over to the room’s one window, an ornate gothic affair of stone and small, leaded panes. It looked far down into a courtyard, sunless now as the afternoon drew on. ‘I slept a long time,’ she said.
‘Yes, thank God. You’ll be none the worse, my Princess.’
‘Why do you keep calling me that?’ It was beginning to irritate her.
The old woman looked confused. ‘He will explain everything,’ she said. ‘He knows what’s best for us all. I was his nurse, you know, and his father’s before him.’
‘His father’s! Then you must have known my mother?’
‘Indeed I did.’ Suddenly there were tears in the pale old eyes. ‘She was my Princess first. But they took her away from me, that terrible time of the Plot, and gave her to the holy sisters to rear, and I never saw her again. Oh, how I cried. For a while I thought I would never stop. But they took me away to France – Oh, Jesu Maria, what wickedness! But there was my poor mistress, and my Seb – the young master. Oh, senhora, a Prince among men! How lucky you are!’
‘What do you mean?’
She looked, surely, frightened. ‘I’m talking too much, because of being so glad to see you. I’ve asked and asked when I was going to see you, and “soon”, he always answered, “she will come soon”. But you must rest, my jewel, you’re looking exhausted, and it’s all my fault. He will be angry if I’ve tired you.’ It was evident that in her life there was only one ‘he’, her master.
Juana was glad to subside on to a flounced velvet chaise longue. She closed her eyes for a minute, then opened them to watch the old woman tidying the big bed. ‘We’re locked in together?’ she asked.
‘Yes. He said it would be safer.’
‘But in his house! This is his house – at Sintra?’ She had never seen it, but knew it to be somewhere high up on the outskirts of the royal village.
‘Yes, of course. But we’ve so few servants. Not enough to protect you from Them.’
‘I see.’ What use would a locked door be against the Sons of the Star? There was something very strange about the whole situation. She was beginning to be frightened again. But that was absurd. Or – was it? Why were Daisy and Teresa not here already, and a detachment of men from the Pleasant Valley? ‘Why don’t my sisters come?’ she asked.
‘What sisters, senhora? You have no sisters. Nor any kin save my master. Oh, but this is a happy day, to see the two of you united at last.’
‘United?’ Now she knew she was frightened.
‘I’m talking too much. He will explain.’ And then, with obvious relief: ‘I hear horses now. Let me brush your hair again, senhora. If only it was not so short – more like a boy than—’ She stopped, and was very busy for a few minutes fluffing out Juana’s short hair and adjusting the set of stiff taffeta sleeves and skirt. ‘He never liked to be kept waiting did my Seb – my master.’
‘What did you call him?’
‘I? The master? What should I call him, but that?’ And then, aware of Juana’s unbelief – ‘Oh, some childish nickname I should have forgotten long since. Don’t tell him: he’d be angry, now he’s a great man.’
A great man? Her cousin Vasco? ‘A bastard who has spent a fortune on forged documents to prove his legitimacy.’ Gair’s remembered voice. ‘A fortune … of most suspicious origin.’ ‘Don’t trust him,’ Gair had said. She bit her lips to stop them trembling. Where was Gair now?
A key rattled in the lock on the other side of the door.
‘Here he is,’ said the old woman, and Juana had, for a moment, a strange feeling that she was frightened too. She moved quickly to the door on which a hand was now gently knocking.
‘May I come in?’ Vasco’s voice.
The old woman looked at Juana, her hand on the bolt. What would happen if she were to say no? ‘Of course,’ she said.
In fact, there was something very reassuring about Vasco, his usual self, casual in open-necked shirt and breeches, hot from riding, shining from a quick wash, hurrying across the room to take her hand: ‘Cousin, you’re none the worse?’
‘Nothing but a slight headache. I owe you a world of thanks, it seems. It’s the second time you’ve saved me, cousin.’
‘Thank God I was able to.’ His lips were hot on her hand.
His other arm was bandaged. ‘You’re hurt! What happened? I don’t understand anything. And where are my family?’
‘There’s so much to explain. And, Juana, this is no place for us to talk. Your bedroom!’ His glance lingered for a moment on the huge four-poster. ‘Will you not come down and sup with me?’
‘With pleasure!’ Had she actually been afraid this luxurious room was a prison? She was glad to let him take her hand and lead her down a graceful flight of stairs to the room directly below where a cold meal lay ready on a long table. Glancing out of the window, she saw that this room, like hers, looked down through leaded panes on to the central courtyard of the house. They were still well above ground level.
Vasco was holding her chair for her. ‘I’m going to wait on you myself,’ he said, interpreting her puzzled glance. ‘After what happened last night, I trust no one, not even my own servants.’
‘Is it as bad as that?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But what did happen?’ At last she could ask the question.
‘How much do you remember?’
‘Very little. Only waking, with Them all around me – then the blow on my head, and nothing more till I woke again, thank God, upstairs.’
‘Them? But you know who?’
‘The Sons of the Star, surely, though I can’t think why.’ How much should she tell him? She took a cautious bite of cold chicken and rice, found it made her feel better, and ventured a sip of wine.
He must have sensed her hesitation: ‘Juana, you must trust me. Our only safety, now, lies in absolute honesty with each other.’
‘What do you mean? And, Vasco have you sent to tell my family I am safe?’
‘Not yet. That’s what I am trying to explain. We are in danger, you and I, grave danger. For the moment, we dare trust no one, tell no one you are here.’
‘But my family will be desperate with worry.’
‘Yes. But why? Because you are missing, or because you are not dead, as the Sons of the Star intended? How do you know which of your family you can trust? Have you never noticed that they tend to separate on the nights of the meetings?’
‘The meetings? You know about them?’
‘Who doesn’t? Nobody dares speak of them, but that’s different. You haven’t answered my question.’
‘About my family? Yes, it’s true; we often do all seem to separate early on the night of the full moon, but there could be so many reasons for that. I can’t believe they would conspire against me.’
‘No? You’re not facing facts. What about the party at Ramalhao? You’d be mad to trust them, any of them, after that. They’ll stop at nothing to get the castle from you.’
‘But I’ve already said I’d give it to them.’
‘There’s more to it than that. It’s not only your family you have to fear, is it?’ He refilled their wine glasses. ‘You’re hedging with me, Juana, and in a way I respect you for it. Shall I make it easier for you and tell you that I have known, all year, that you were the Handmaiden of the Star?’
‘You’ve known? Good God, but how?’
‘For the best of reasons. Because I told your grandmother to send for you.’
‘You?’ Now her confusion was complete.
‘Who else?’
‘But why?’
‘Because I need you, Juana. Portugal needs you.’
‘Portugal?’ What lunacy was this? Impossible, surely, that he and Gair had been working together all the time?
‘It’s incredible that you should not know. But you don’t, do you?’
‘I certainly don’t know what you are talking about.’ Every instinct told her to play for time.
‘I suppose it was safest not to tell you. Our inheritance is a great danger, Juana, as well as a great responsibility.’
‘You mean because of the Tavora plot? As de Mascarenhas? I don’t understand …’
‘No, no.’ Impatiently. ‘Our story goes back much further than that. Do you know what my second name is?’
‘Your second name?’ She began to wonder if he could be mad.
‘It’s Sebastian, Juana, after our famous ancestor. And you are named for his wife. Surely you must know the story of the lost Prince Sebastian?’
‘Yes, of course. But you can’t mean – He was never married.
‘Yes, he was. Just before he sailed for Morocco, he married the lady he loved, the lady of the rock, our Spanish ancestress, the first Juana. She bore his son after the fatal battle, after his death. The times were dangerous, but her secret was well kept, When Prince Henry died and the House of Aviz was thought to be extinct, her son was only a year old; she did not dare try to claim the throne for him. All through the sixty years of Spanish occupation she lived quietly at the Castle on the Rock with her son and her grand-children. The restoration of the House of Braganza killed her. She was a great lady, Juana, from everything I can find out about her, but her son was unworthy of her, and of his father. He made no effort to claim his inheritance nor even to prove the validity of his mother’s marriage. It has been left to me to do that. It has taken me years, but I have done it at last. Juana, you and I are the only surviving descendants of King Sebastian, his legitimate heirs. Since we claim through female descent you are rightful Queen of Portugal.’ Suddenly he was kneeling on the floor at her feet, kissing her hands. Then, just as quickly, he was standing over her, his colour high. ‘I can get you this crown, Juana. You know the people believe that Sebastian will return in Portugal’s hour of need? Well, he will return. I, Sebastian, will return. Then you will see an end to the inertia that has gripped the country under the miserable Braganzas. I tell you, the army will follow me to a man; we will drive the French from our gates; Portugal will be itself again. Only first, Juana, to avoid any possibility of conflict, you and I must be married. You must see that.’
She did indeed. She was not sure how much of the fantastic story she believed. She was not even sure how much of it he believed himself, but one thing stood out brutally clear. Because of his own illegitimacy (‘forged documents’, Gair had said) he needed her beside him to back his incredible claim. It all began to make a terrifying kind of sense. What old Luisa had said … the clothes hanging ready in the closet … Vasco had carried her off. His elaborate courtesy, the dramatic kissing of hands, merely masked the fact that she was entirely in his power. And there was so dangerously much that she did not understand. She took a deep breath. ‘You have amazed me, cousin. I don’t know what to say.’ She must have time to think.
‘I don’t wonder. It’s a tremendous prospect, is it not? Queen of Portugal. Think of all the good you can do, Juana. Think how this country needs you. Your grandmother wanted it for you: remember that. She knew. That’s why she sent for you. If she could speak now she would tell you to take up your destiny and be a Queen. It’s fate you see, that our family should have come back, quite by chance, to the Castle on the Rock. As its owner – as my wife – I tell you, Juana, we can’t fail. It’s our duty, don’t you see, to save the country.’
‘You overwhelm me, cousin.’ The more he told her, the less she trusted him. Now, at last, she understood why there had always been something strange about his love-making. Nothing he had ever said to her had been quite true. She would be mad to believe him now. She would be madder still to let him see that she did not. ‘It’s all too much for me,’ she said. ‘You must give me time to take it in.’ Dared she ask some of the questions that boiled in her brain? ‘But my grandmother knew, you say?’ That should be safe enough.
‘Of course. I told you. That’s why she sent for you. Oh, she was glad enough to give up acting as Handmaiden – she was absurdly too old for that: I don’t know how she managed to keep it up so long – all those stairs, and the cold down there. Ridiculous at her age.’
‘So you’re a member, and I never knew.’ Had he intended to betray it? She managed, she hoped, to sound as if she was simply impressed by his cleverness. But once again her brain was racing. Twice he was supposed to have rescued her from the Sons of the Star. And he was one of them. No wonder he had found it so easy. She found herself looking at the bandage on his left arm and wondering if there was any wound underneath it. Dangerous even to think of that. The more she learned, the more aware she was of her own danger. And there was something else. Something more frightening still. If her grandmother had been conspiring with Vasco all the time, had she told him about the secret panel? About Gair?
She thought not. She hoped not. But how to find out? ‘How in the world did you manage to meet my grandmother?’ She asked it in tones of simple admiration. ‘Without my ever having any idea?’
‘Oh, that was easy enough.’ She did not think he much liked the question. ‘But there will be time for explanation later. Just now, you are in grave danger; you must give me the right to protect you.’
‘You mean from the Sons of the Star? But, if you’re a member?’
‘Don’t you see?’ He did not enjoy having his logic questioned. ‘There’s a division in the ranks. That’s where the danger, lies. The better part of the members are heart and soul for me, for Sebastian, but there are still some madmen who think the French will bring Portugal freedom. They are the ones we have to fear.’
‘I see.’ She was trembling at once with terror and with relief. Her grandmother had not betrayed her all the way. Vasco did not know about the secret panel. He had no idea that she had listened to the meetings and therefore knew that Sebastian’s name had never even been mentioned. He thought of her merely as the Handmaiden of the Star, a woman, beneath serious consideration. He must continue to do so. ‘A Queen,’ she said. ‘It’s like a dream, cousin.’ A nightmare.
‘So you agree? You’ll marry me, my Queen?’
Something very odd about his tone. She had never thought so fast, remembered so much. Was she beginning to understand? He did not want to marry her. Did not want to marry at all? No time to think it out further, she must use this instinctive knowledge for all it was worth. ‘Vasco!’ She stopped. ‘Sebastian, my King, of course I’ll marry you.’ She seized his hand, kissed it with passion, and thought she felt him recoil. ‘But – a royal marriage? Not a hole and corner one like my step-sisters’. Surely you and I should wait and be married as a King and Queen should, in the Cathedral?’
Would it work? With his reluctance on her side? ‘The Se at Lisbon?’ He considered it. ‘You’re right in a way. Publicly, before the world.’
‘Yes.’ Dared she? ‘There must seem nothing doubtful about this marriage, cousin.’
‘I believe you’re right.’ He did not like the implication, but he took it. And had taken, too, she thought, the bait of her sudden capitulation. ‘It would not be long to wait,’ he went on thoughtfully, and now she was sure of the relief in his voice. ‘I meet my friends tonight, my Queen. I can tell them I have your promise?’
‘Of course.’ His friends. The inner circle of the Sons of the Star?
‘I told them I would be married.’ He was still considering it. ‘The friar waits below. It could be a marriage in name only, for now, my Queen. The true marriage could take place, when we are victorious, in the Se.’
What a fool he must think her? ‘I told them I would be married.’ He might as well have admitted that he had been responsible for carrying her off. Well, the more foolish he thought her, the better her chance of escape. But her line now must be not so much folly as ambition. She rose to her feet, every inch, she hoped a Queen. ‘No, cousin.’ she said. ‘It is the King I marry, not the man. You have forgotten, I think, how recently I refused you.’ Much better she remind him of this than that he remember, later, and begin to wonder. ‘As a man, I like you well enough, but this side of marriage. As a King, I know you my master. Only, give me time – a little time – so I may learn to love you as I should. In the meanwhile, you have my promise.’ She turned, swept from the room and resisted a fierce temptation to make a run for it down the stairs – hopeless, of course. Instead, she walked, as stately as possible, up to the room above, her prison. She knew that now.
He was following her, but at least she had the initiative. ‘I’m exhausted, cousin.’ she turned at the door to face him. ‘I will bid you goodnight. But first I must thank you again for rescuing me.’ At all costs she must not let him see that she knew he had in fact been her kidnapper.
‘Thank God I was able to. But we must continue to take every possible precaution. You will not mind if I lock you in for the night? Old Luisa will take good care of you. My men are on guard in the courtyard below, but I do not dare trust even my friends, who are coming here tonight. I will feel safer if I know your door is both locked and bolted.’
‘Your meeting is here?’
‘Why, yes. We meet without any melodrama; we are simply a group of friends, gathered for a hand of cards. In the morning I hope to be able to tell you it has been a profitable one.’
‘Yes.’ If only, by some miracle, she could hear what he said to them. ‘And in the morning we will send word to my family that I am safe?’
‘I hope so.’
She was beginning to be able to tell when he was lying to her. He had no intention of letting anyone know where she was. Would he tell his accomplices that they were already married? Very likely. ‘I would like to meet your friends.’ she said.
‘Impossible!’ And then, reasonably. ‘We have your reputation to think of, my Queen.’ He had stayed, all this time on the threshold of her room, now he looked past her: ‘Luisa, your mistress is tired.’
In some ways it was actually a relief to hear the key grate in the lock on the other side of the door and watch Luisa shoot the bolt. She might be a prisoner but at least, for the moment, she was safe. And at last she had time to think. Lying in the great four-poster bed (‘fit for a Queen’, Luisa had said as she retired to her own pallet) she sorted out the day’s terrifying discoveries. She was sure, now, that Vasco was the real leader of the Sons of the Star, the one whose return from abroad had meant such a change in the tone of the meetings. He might, or might not, be a little mad, but it would be lunacy to underestimate him. His claim to the throne might be, as she suspected, the merest fabrication, but that did not make him any less dangerous. When she thought how he had kept the Sons of the Star in hand, meeting after meeting, delaying action until he had built up his own claim, she could not help a kind of appalled respect for him.
And meanwhile, as she and Gair had suspected, his inner circle of friends had been meeting here at Sintra, making the real plans. How was she to find out what they were? And, more important still, how escape and warn Gair Varlow?
How right he had been to urge her not to trust Vasco. She remembered, with a thrill of terror, the second time Vasco had proposed to her. It had been touch and go, helpless in his arms, whether she yielded and told him what she knew about the Sons of the Star. To have done so, she saw now, would have been to sign her own death warrant – and Gair’s. From now on, she must watch every word, every breath, every look; and watch, equally, for any chance of escape.
For it was obvious that Vasco intended to keep her a prisoner until the time came to strike. It would be done with the greatest courtesy, but it would be done quite ruthlessly. Luisa was at once gaoler and chaperone. She would not be allowed to leave the room save in Vasco’s company. He had told her that the courtyard below was full of his servants. Protecting her, or guarding her? There was not a chance in the world of escaping from this high room, with its one window overlooking the court.
Her only hope must lie, fantastically, in the next meeting of the Sons of the Star. They would need their Handmaiden to let them in. She must persuade Vasco of this, and, first, she must persuade him that she was both negligible and committed to his cause. Thank God, she thought, she had managed a good beginning.
She woke next morning to the sound of rain, and wondered who had taken charge of the preparations for the olive harvest down in the Pleasant Valley. What could her family be thinking about her disappearance? And – more important than anything – had Gair heard about it? He, at least, could be relied on to draw some of the right conclusions. But he was so busy in Lisbon, it might be days before he visited the Castle on the Rock, and in the meantime, with her grandmother beyond helping her, there was no reason why anyone should let him know of her disappearance.
It brought her back to the question that had been plaguing her. How, in fact, had she been kidnapped? She forced herself, reluctantly, to remember that terrifying moment of midnight awakening. She had been looking toward the big closet that hid the entrance to the winding stair. Its door had been shut, she was sure of that now. And’ the light had come from the other side of the room, the blow on her head from behind her.
The answer was obvious. There must be another secret entrance to the room, one about which her grandmother had not chosen to tell her. It explained so much. That was how Vasco had managed to keep in touch with the old lady. No wonder he had not much liked it when she raised the question. And now, horribly, she remembered the night of Mrs. Brett’s ‘attack’. Vasco must have visited her that night, must have lost his temper for some reason and struck her. An old lady – his ally. It cast a terrifying light on Juana’s own position.
She made herself present a cheerful morning face to old Luisa who woke, grumbling, to unlock the bedroom door for a girl with cans of hot water. ‘I hope you slept at least,’ the old woman locked the door again behind the girl and approached the bed.
‘Like a log.’ Surprisingly, it was true, and her head felt wonderfully clearer for it. ‘But did not you?’
‘No!’ The old woman gestured angrily to the pallet which had been placed by the huge ornamental fireplace, a rarity in Portugal ‘I might have known no good would come of those foreign contraptions. This house was built by an Englishman.’ she explained, as she fetched a heavy brocade dress for Juana’s inspection. ‘He would have those fireplaces in all the main rooms. This one must connect with the one in the room below – they kept me awake till God knows when with their talk, talk, talk.’
‘They?’
‘The master and his friends. He entertains them in the dining room below – they play some gambling game with cards – and talk! I thought I’d go crazy.’
‘You mean you could actually hear what they said?’ Juana was washing her face vigorously at the heavily ornamented hand-basin and put the question casually Over her shoulder. Fantastic, maddening, to have had such a chance and missed it.
‘I could have if I’d wanted to. What I wanted to do was to sleep, I’ll have my bed moved before next week.’
‘They come regularly?’
‘Once a week. He’s a devil for the cards, the master.’
So the chance might return, if only she could make use of it. And if there was time. ‘When shall I see my cousin?’ She was to play the adoring female and this question was surely in order.
‘Over dinner. The master has been out for hours, but he said he would come to you at once when he returned.’
There was nothing to be gained by trying to persuade old Luisa to let her out of the room. She must keep up the pretence that all the precautions were for her own safety. No doubt the old woman really believed that they were.
When they met, she made herself greet Vasco with a warmth from which, she thought, he just perceptibly shrank, then with an even greater effort made herself wait to question him until they were seated at table. Once more they were alone. ‘We can talk more freely this way.’ He made sure the door was firmly shut, ‘And it’s safer for you.’
‘Does that mean you don’t think it safe yet to let my family know I am here?’ She made the question as casual as possible. ‘They must be horribly anxious.’
‘Yes, but why? It’s true, they have messengers out scouring the country for news of you. One came here last night. I think I must pay a call of condolence on the Castle on the Rock today.’
He was enjoying it, Juana thought. He liked the sensation of power. He would be an appallingly dangerous ruler for any country. ‘You really think I can’t trust them?’
‘I’m sure you can’t. You must let me be wise for you, Juana. You must be patient. It won’t be for long, I promise you. Our day is at hand.’
‘You had good news last night?’
‘Yes. Everything is going as I wish. The news of the French invasion is out at last, but Dom John still believes he can appease them with soft words. He is thinking of signing a decree confiscating English property.’
‘But, good God, the Castle on the Rock!’ She had never signed the paper making it over to Pedro and Roberto.
He laughed. ‘You underestimate me, my Queen. I, too, had thought of that. We need it, you and I, for sentimental reasons. It will be our country home, favoured above even Queluz or Sintra or that dreary priest-hole at Mafra.’ And then, casually, ‘There’s something I forgot to tell you. Your grandmother died yesterday.’
‘Oh, no!’ For lack of proper nursing? Because she missed her? Or for some more sinister reason? She would never know. And Vasco, who had almost certainly been the ultimate cause of her death, had hardly bothered to mention it.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ He sounded uninterested. ‘They’re all at sixes and sevens at the castle, by what I hear, with the owner dead and the heir vanished, but it won’t be long, I imagine, before they see the advantage in it. With you gone, your uncles can waive their claim and your cousins inherit. With the power of Dom John behind them, they should do well enough – they’ll take care of our castle until we are ready to reclaim it from them.’
‘You think of everything, cousin.’ She was afraid he did, horribly afraid now that old Mrs. Brett had not died a natural death. She herself must have unwittingly prolonged the old lady’s life by moving her downstairs, away from her own room with its two secret entrances. This was a new, grim reminder of Vasco’s power as leader of the Sons of the Star. When he had needed to, he had been able to strike old Mrs. Brett, even protected as she was by a nurse in the room all the time.
‘I have to think of everything.’ He expanded under her praise. ‘Napoleon is not the only great strategist in Europe, cousin. He will discover that when he and I measure swords at last.’
He was a little mad, she thought, but that did not make him any less dangerous. ‘But if the French are really coming?’ Was that too intelligent a question? ‘What’s going to happen?’ She amended it. ‘I think I’m frightened, cousin.’
‘No need to be. Not with me beside you. My friends, by the way, all sent you their loyal wishes and congratulations.’
So he had told them they were married. ‘You must thank them for me,’ she said. ‘But will you be meeting again?’ This, above all, she needed to find out.
‘Oh yes. Once at least. There’s plenty of time still. Junot has a long way to go before we need deal with him. Believe me, we’ll be ready when the time comes. But first we have to set our own house in order. That’s why I beg you to be patient for a little while, my Queen. We cannot make our final dispositions till the next meeting of the Sons of the Star. Until then, I must beg you to stay in asylum here. That will be the moment of declaration.’
‘I see. But, Vasco, about the meeting: who is going to open the doors if I’m not there?’
‘What?’ Here, quite obviously, was something he had not thought of.
‘I’m sure you have some splendid plan about that,’ she hurried on. ‘But Vasco, couldn’t I do it? I should like to – it would be fitting somehow. To do it for you … I’m sure you could arrange it.’ She must not for a minute suggest that she had realised about the second entrance to her grandmother’s room.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, and with that she had to be content.