3. Anna, Queen of Britain

A NNA , Q UEEN OF B RITAIN Somerset House, London, the same day

‘I S THAT THE MAN they're sending?' Looking down from where she stood by the tall windows of the gallery, she could not claim the best of views, but to her eyes he looked too large, and in his scarlet livery, beside his massive horse, much too intimidating.

Standing at her side, Sir William Moray also glanced down at the young man in the stableyard and told her, ‘Aye, that's Andrew Logan.'

‘What do you know of him?'

‘If someone must be sent, he is a better man than most.' The queen had known Sir William long enough to know he would be smiling when he added, ‘He's a Scotsman.'

Anna said, ‘Then I do wonder he would do the deed at all.' But even as she said the words, she knew that they were foolish. Of course he had no choice, this Scottish Messenger. They none of them had any choice but to do what the king commanded.

‘I am very sorry,' she said softly, to Sir William, ‘that it came to this.'

‘'Tis not your fault, Your Majesty.'

A gracious thing for him to say, but Anna knew the wheels of this whole venture had been set in motion by her actions.

Two weeks had passed, and yet she could recall each detail of that walk at Whitehall down the river steps to meet the barge that would bear all of them to Greenwich.

It had been a tedious procession, and a painful one for Anna, still recovering from an attack of gout that left her ankle swollen, but James had insisted. ‘A king should be seen by his subjects,' he'd told her. ‘Besides,'tis the last time most of them will see Elizabeth. They'll wish to say farewell to her and her new husband.'

Anna cared not what the people wished. Not with her son, her Henry, barely five months in his grave, and now this second loss to bear. She had endured the wedding of her daughter to the young Prince Palatine, and smiled through the festivities, but now that their departure to the continent was days away, those smiles came with difficulty.

Walking stiffly behind James that day, she had no smile to show the crowd. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, and did not pause. Until she saw the old man kneeling by the river steps.

He had a kindly face, lined deeply from his years of labour, and his eyes were blind. They stared upwards, unseeing, at the guardsman who was trying to persuade the man to rise and move along.

Anna stopped. ‘What is this?'

With apologies, the guardsman turned. ‘He claims that he must speak with you, Your Majesty.'

The king, already halfway down the steps, would not have stood for this delay. Still, if her guards moved the old man, they'd do it roughly.

Anna told the guardsman, ‘If he be unarmed, let him approach, and I will hear him.'

For a moment, when the old man was first brought before her, she regretted her decision. Looking at those eyes, fixed so unerringly upon her face, it seemed impossible they could not see. She found their clouded gaze unsettling.

The man bowed deeply, greeting her, ‘Your Majesty. God save and keep you. I do bear a message from the prince, your son.'

She glanced in some confusion at the river steps, where she could see her son, Prince Charles – the one son left alive to her – now talking to his sister and her husband as they all prepared to board the royal barge under the king's direction.

The old man, although blind, appeared aware of Anna's action. ‘Not Prince Charles.' He shook his head. ‘Your other son, Your Majesty. Prince Henry.'

Anna brought her head around. The cold she felt owed nothing to the April wind. It curled its fist around her from within and stole her voice. She said, ‘My other son is dead. You are mistaken.'

The guardsman moved as though to drag the old man from her presence, seemingly aware of her distress.

The old man quickly said, ‘He bids you speak to David.'

Anna held her hand up in a gesture that would stop the guardsman. ‘David?'

With a nod, the old man told her, ‘That is what he said. This David, he does hold the answers that you seek.'

She met the blind eyes with a feeling of unease. She nearly said that she was looking for no answers, that she had no questions, but she sensed this man would know that was untrue. Instead she asked him, in a cautious tone, ‘And is that all?'

‘He said to tell you that he kept his promise. That his flames of truth and justice are yet burning, as you wished. They burn so brightly that even a blind man like myself can see them.'

Anna stared, although he could not see her. ‘How did you…' She recognized the promise, and remembered Henry making it, but they had been alone then – there'd been no one else within the room to hear. How then could this old man speak almost Henry's exact words?

She nearly asked him, ‘Was it poison?' But she knew. She knew .

His face creased slightly in a smile, and yet she barely saw it, for her eyes were flooded suddenly with unshed tears.

She sharply turned her face to hide them, and to her shock met the too-perceptive gaze of James. He must have wondered why she'd been detained, for he'd retraced his progress up the river steps and now stood half a stride away from her.

James eyed her closely, and demanded, ‘What is wrong? What did this man say to upset ye?'

‘Nothing.' Anna knew that nothing good would come of telling James the truth. He dealt harshly with all those who spoke of Henry, even more so now that some claimed James himself had ordered Henry's death. It wasn't true, of course. A thing so terrible could not be true. But James, impatient with the rumours, sought to silence them, and cared not how he shut the gossips' mouths.

Anna tried to shield the old man. Turning back, she told him, ‘I do thank you for your kind good wishes.'

Once again he bowed and said, ‘God save and keep you, Majesty.'

And Anna saw two children take his arms and start to walk away with him, as if they sensed that leaving him so close to James was dangerous.

Breathing more easily, Anna reminded James, ‘We must not miss the tide.' Head high, she walked on before him.

But she had forgotten the guardsman, who'd been near enough to overhear at least a part of what the old man said.

From the quayside, Anna watched while James stood several moments longer on the river steps, his dark head bent in thoughtful conversation with that guardsman. Then James nodded and came down the final steps in silence.

Settling on his cushioned seat beside her in the barge, James looked across at Anna. He could imitate a smile so that it nearly reached his eyes, but not entirely.

She knew exactly what that smile was saying. James was telling her that she could have no secrets; that he'd learned the old man's message.

They both knew which David the old man had meant for her to speak to, for there only ever was one David in the confidence and heart of their Prince Henry.

James disliked Sir David Moray.

Anna felt the cold wrap slowly round her chest and grip it tightly. She should not have stopped to hear the blind man. Now, that single action could have consequences beyond her control.

She briefly closed her eyes and prayed for strength and guidance, as the barge, freed from its moorings, caught the current of the sparkling Thames and started downstream, towards Greenwich.

That had been two weeks ago. Elizabeth and her new husband were now gone, and after the farewells were said, both James and Anna had returned by separate ways to London.

Anna hoped the old blind man had made it safely home that day, and not been intercepted by the king's guards. When he questioned someone, James was ruthless. And relentless.

She had known he would not let the matter lie.

So she had sought Sir William.

True, he'd been raised with James since they were in their nursery days, and he was loyal to his king, but blood was blood. Sir David was his brother.

‘I am sorry,' she had told him then. ‘The king's advisers will not tell me anything. But you…'

Sir William doubted he'd have better luck. ‘They may not tell me anything, if it concerns my brother. But I do have other avenues of information.'

Which was how they'd learned of James's plan to send the Messenger.

Now, standing at the window looking down at the young giant dressed in scarlet in her stableyard, the queen had doubts about their own plans, which were very different from the king's.

While James intended to arrest Sir David and arrange to have him punished for a crime he'd had no hand in, Anna wanted no more than to talk to him in private, as the old man had advised her.

I do bear a message from the prince, your son… he bids you speak to David.

The cold she'd felt upon the river steps gripped her as fiercely as it had that day. ‘What if my letter does not reach him?' Anna asked.

Sir William said, ‘I sent it by a man I trust completely. It will reach him.'

‘But what if he is taken, all the same?'

‘We have our friends in France. And if he heads for Scotland, well, I've warned our cousin Patrick there to do all in his power to see that David does not come to London.'

Anna frowned, still looking down upon the young man in the stableyard. ‘And the Messenger?'

‘I've spoken to him, privately. I've called his conscience into play. He has a strong one. It may serve us well.'

‘And if it doesn't?' Anna could not help but ask the question. ‘If it comes to bloodshed?'

She was aware of silence at her back, as though the answer wanted some consideration. But the answer, when it came, was unconcerned.

‘Look at the size of him,' Sir William said. ‘He's a braw lad, who can take a little bruising. And,' he promised her, ‘there's no one else will come to harm.'