I embraced her, holding her tight.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘It’s finished now.’
‘I couldn’t make him understand.’
‘Was he drunk?’
She nodded through her tears. ‘I think he was saying that he was a prince, so he was entitled to make love to me.’
My anger boiled up. I held Victoria until her tears subsided. Then I straightened her clothing and led her outside.
I was intending to take her directly to bed, but Extepan intercepted us.
‘Catherine, I’m glad I’ve found you. Will you and Victoria give me a few minutes?’
‘Not now,’ I said curtly.
He indicated the sky.
‘It’s dawn. I have something for you.’
An aide stood close by. Extepan motioned to him, and he hurried off to the George IV gateway.
Victoria began shivering against me. I wanted to give vent to my fury, but now was not the time. Extepan was looking across the grounds of the castle; he hadn’t noticed Victoria’s distress. The fire in front of the tower was almost dead, sooty smoke rising from its ashes. Those celebrants that remained were heading off towards the chapel for a brief morning service.
The aide appeared, leading two colts, one chestnut, one grey.
Extepan took their reins.
‘These are for you,’ he said. ‘Merry Christmas.’
Eight
Victoria led the gallop down the Long Walk from the castle. I spurred the grey, tugging its reins to ensure that it did not charge off in another direction entirely. It was the more wilful of the two, and it was just my luck after giving Victoria first choice of the pair. She was a far superior rider, and had spent a great deal of time at our stables in Okehampton before the invasion. The horses we had once kept there had reputedly been served up as meat for the hungry town in the chaotic aftermath.
Victoria was already disappearing towards Windsor Great Park, her mount throwing up snow from its hoofs, giving me an unerring trail to follow. I held the reins tight to maintain the line, though the grey kept pulling to the left. Behind me, Richard, Xochinenen and several Aztec guards followed at a much more leisurely pace on their own mounts.
It was a cold January morning, and the overnight snow was still pristine. Every morning for the past week Victoria and I had raced the horses to the George III statue in the park, and I hadn’t won once. Again I knew it was hopeless, so I gave the grey its head. Immediately it veered off on its own uninhibited path in pursuit of its stable-mate.
Victoria had long dismounted by the time I reached the statue. I was exhausted yet exhilarated by my efforts to control the colt.
‘Where have you been?’ she said cheerily.
I climbed down from the saddle. The insides of my thighs were already sore, and my feet felt crushed in my riding boots. I had never been a particularly horsy person, in contrast to Victoria.
‘He thinks he can run off whenever he pleases,’ I said. ‘He has a mule’s brain.’
‘Isn’t it time you gave him a name, Kate?’
Victoria had already christened her chestnut Archimedes after a favourite childhood pony which we had kept at Marlborough.
‘I can think of plenty of names,’ I said. ‘Stubborn, Pig-headed, Obstreperous, Perverse, Adamant—’
‘Adamant!’ she interrupted. ‘That’s perfect, Kate. Adamant and Archimedes.’
The others cantered up. Xochinenen was riding side-saddle on her horse, a big fur cloak draped around her tiny frame. Her plaited hair had been tied up under a fur bonnet. She had remained behind at Windsor while her father was in Eastern Europe, inspecting Aztec forces on the Rhine and meeting with the Polish government in Warsaw in order to sign a non-aggression treaty.
Richard clearly enjoyed Xochinenen’s company. She had a similar child-like air to him, and he was supposedly teaching her English, though I suspected she spoke it well enough already and was simply indulging him. They spent much of their time together flying kites from the castle walls, playing hide-and-seek in the State Apartments and even sliding down banisters to the mute displeasure of almost everyone.
I was glad that Richard had agreed to extend our holiday at Windsor. The castle was a place of many happy memories for the whole family, and both he and Victoria had benefited from escaping the hothouse atmosphere of London. Extepan had returned promptly to his duties on New Year’s Day, but not before I had met him privately and told him about the incident with Victoria and Tlacahuepan. He said nothing at the time, but the following day I learned that Tlacahuepan had been transferred to Canberra to join the governor’s staff in the Australian Protectorate.
The sun began to show through the cloud. Presently Chicomeztli cantered up on a trap which held a solarized hamper and collapsible furniture.
We unfolded the chairs and a small table. Inside the hamper were hot sausages, croissants, scrambled egg and piping coffee. The black-panelled chairs were already warm when we sat down in them, converting the grey winter light into heat with an efficiency which only the Aztecs had mastered. So we picnicked on that cold winter morning while transporters and interceptors whined by overhead, flying into and out of Heathrow.
Presently Richard suggested we go skating on the pond, but our responses were drowned by a swallow-tailed shuttle flying in low. We all watched as it decelerated, then dropped down behind the walls of the castle itself.
The horses had been startled by the craft, and it took a while to settle them. I saw a black ground-car approaching from the castle, a Molotov Aeroflot with the governor’s stylized golden eagle insignia on its slanted bonnet. Wings of snow spewed from its flanks so that it looked like a speedboat cruising through a white sea. It sped directly towards us, braked, and finally settled in the snow.
A door flipped up, and Extepan stepped out. He approached me.
Something in his face filled me with a sense of dread.
‘Catherine,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, but I think you should accompany me back to the castle immediately.’
I asked him nothing, but meekly accompanied him to the car. I sat in silence while the driver took us back to the castle. I wouldn’t even look at him.
The main gate was open, lined with guards who waved us through. The driver steered the car into one of the parking spaces in front of St George’s chapel.
Extepan swung open the door.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
I followed him up the chapel steps. At the entrance he paused and put a hand on my arm.
‘Catherine, forgive me. This is not going to be pleasant.’
I pushed past him into the chapel.
Standing in the aisle was a hospital trolley, flanked by Aztec guards. A body draped in a white sheet lay on it. Dimly I was aware of the chapel’s splendour all around me – the stalls, the banners, the helmets of the Knights of the Garter, the blue-and-white diamond-patterned floor. But I did not take my eyes off the shape under the sheet.
Extepan came to my side. I heard myself saying, ‘Who is it?’ though I already knew.
‘We’re not certain, but I think you should prepare yourself…’
I moved to pull back the sheet, but Extepan took hold of my wrist.
‘Let go of me!’
‘The face is unrecognizable, Catherine. He was killed by falling stonework during the assault on Edinburgh Castle.’
I wrenched myself free and pulled back the sheet.
And recoiled.
The body was naked except for a pair of white briefs. Above the chest it was just a mass of bloody pulp and matted hair. Chestnut hair. I forced myself to look again. There was the appendix scar, there the pale mole on his left thigh, there the familiar V of golden hairs bisecting his abdomen.