Lakota Princess (35 page)

But before she rose, before she readied herself to go down to dinner, she closed her eyes, begging the old Earl to release her from a vow that had almost destroyed her happiness, her life.

Tears streaming down her face, the wind suddenly chose that moment to push open the doors.

As the breeze brushed past her, jostling back her hair, ruffling her frock, she could have sworn she heard the old Earl forgive her.

At long last, Estrela stood released.

A hush fell over the assembled crowd. No one stirred. No one spoke. Not even the sound of tinkling silverware marred the silence.

Estrela stepped a foot farther into the dining room, and as she did so a gasp was heard as loudly as if it had been shouted.

Black Bear glanced over to the entrance.

He gazed. He shut his eyes, unable to mask the emotion in his expression. In truth, as the moments flicked by, he stood, eyes closed, one single tear welled up in his eye.

He barely breathed for fear he was hallucinating. But at last he opened his eyes and looked.

She stood, there at the entrance, her glance lowered in quiet, Indian modesty.

She stood dressed in all the splendor and wealth of the plains Indian. Her gown, which he remembered from years ago, was fashioned from the finest of elk skin, the dress decorated from top to bottom with elk’s teeth and ending in beaded fringe at the bottom of the selvage. Among the plains Indians, this was the most prized of all dresses. On her feet she wore blue and red beaded moccasins, white quills adding definition and further accenting the colors there.

She had wrapped a beautifully quilled and designed buffalo robe around her shoulders, and her hair was braided neatly at the sides of her face. Blue, red, and yellow beaded earrings fell from her earlobes, and in the part of her hair, she had painted the flesh there, red, as was the Indian fashion.

Black Bear moved forward. He stopped.

Tears marred his vision making his passage difficult, but at last, Black Bear strode to her, and there, in front of the whole assembly, Waste Ho threw her robe; Indian-style, around him.

It was the way of Indian courting. She knew it. He knew it.

And as she wrapped the robe around him, he bent his head toward her, his lips finding hers, gently at first, and then, as the kiss wore on, he slipped his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, feeling her, loving her.

The robe slipped to the floor, neither she nor Black Bear noticing. In truth, neither of them caring.

Neither was aware of anyone else in the room.

No, this was between them. This was the fulfillment of a vow, the original vow made by them before any other being had come between them.

“I love you,” she said, whispered, and he nodded. In truth, Black Bear couldn’t have spoken at this moment had he tried.

So Black Bear didn’t try. He just looked, he admired, closing his eyes against the overpowering emotion that coursed through him.

At last he said to her, “I will care for you, love you always. I will give you all of me.” He gulped. “This I promise.”

And Estrela couldn’t help it.

She cried.

Right there before the King of England, before the Queen, before all assembled, she cried.

He cried.

And if there were many in the crowd who felt the power of their emotions, no one said a word.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Oh, that’s quite another thing! That’s quite another thing!”

King William watched the proceedings from his position at the head of the table with something akin to glee. “I say, are they all Indians?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, and no.” It was the Duke of Colchester who spoke up beside him.

“Ah,” His Majesty said. “Exactly so, exactly so. I do so like such definitive answers.” The old gentleman, bubbling, his round eyes even wider, suddenly squinted and laughed. “What do you mean, yes and no?”

“Well, you see, Your Majesty,” the Duke of Colchester tried to explain. “The three dark-haired gentlemen there, two of them dress like Indians and are Indians, and the other—well, he, too, is Indian, though he doesn’t dress as one. But then you can see that for yourself. And then the blond, well, she’s not truly Indian, though she grew up with them, but she’s dressed like one, although she isn’t really, although she was with them, but she’s not really…” The Duke cleared his throat. “Now do you understand?”

King William, although not known as one of the greatest Kings of England, was not cruel. He had a natural enthusiasm about him that could endear him to most people and he enjoyed a good laugh, even at his own expense.

He sat now, watching the Duke of Colchester and without much warning, he suddenly burst out in laughter. “Well,” he said, “now that I understand absolutely nothing, won’t you tell me what it is that you mean?”

The Duke of Colchester removed the handkerchief from his pocket and applied the cloth to his lips, then to his forehead. He watched as the two young people stood at the door and did nothing more than gaze at one another. At last, he ventured to say, “The three dark gentlemen there, close to the door are the Indians you have come to meet. The girl, or rather the Lady there, the blond Indian, is not Indian, but she isn’t really white, well, she is white. What I mean to say is…she’s…” Here the Duke of Colchester leaned over to speak confidentially to his Majesty. “I think she is related to our family, Your Majesty. She looks exactly as my mother did, your sister. Grew up among the Indians, she did. Brought there by the Earl of Langsford and brought back by the same. She doesn’t know her heritage.”

“Ah, rightly so, rightly so,” the old monarch replied. “Well, bring her along, bring her along. Let me see her. Let me decide.”

And to His Majesty’s request, the Duke of Colchester said, “Yes, Your Majesty,” and with the assistance of a servant, the Duke went to collect Estrela.

“Your Majesty.” Estrela bent over in a curtsey while the three Indians stood behind her, arms folded over their chests.

“Well, come forward, child, come forward.” The King motioned her to him. “Here,” he said as she approached. “Come, put your little paw there in my own. There, you see,” he said, smiling at her as she took his hand, “that was not too difficult, was it? Not too difficult at all. My, but you’re a pretty thing.” The King squinted his eyes at her. “Come closer, now, come closer.” And when she did, the bubbly, old gentleman smiled, staring at Estrela for an indefinite moment. “Well,” he said at last, “I am not at all hard put to see the resemblance, not at all hard put. Do you remember anything of your mother at all?”

“No, Your Majesty,” Estrela replied.

“Your father?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“And you say the Earl of Langsford took you to the Indians?”

Estrela hesitated. “He did not exactly take me to them. We were running away from trouble when the Indians rescued us.”

Here the King leaned over toward her. He studied her, looking at her in minute detail before he requested, “Bring me another chair, there.” He motioned to a servant. “Yes, there you go, bring me another chair. Now, here, young lady,” he instructed Estrela as the servant produced a chair and placed it beside the monarch. “Ah, here now, exactly so, exactly so. Now, come sit here next to me and tell me how you came to be rescued by Indians.”

Estrela sat while the King motioned to the Duke of Colchester to bring the Indians forward. “Must hear their side of it, too. Now, what do you say?”

Estrela hesitated before she began. “We left England,” she said after a moment, “when I was quite young. I do not remember much of this country at all. But we were chased, Your Majesty, that I do remember vividly.”

“Chased? I say. By whom?”

“I don’t know. The Earl never told me, if he even knew himself.”

“Ah, rightly so, rightly so. Please continue.”

“We escaped to the new world and even there, we could never rest long. I remember fleeing into the west. I remember avoiding towns, any sort of civilization. I remember starving. And then we were found, by the fathers of these three Indians you see here. We stopped running. From then on, as long as we remained with the Indians, we were safe.”

“Well,” the old King muttered. “That’s quite another thing, now, that’s quite another thing. And tell me.” He leaned toward her. “How did you come to be back in this country?”

Estrela gazed at the King, taking her time answering his question. As many as ten people from court stood around her, all listening avidly to her words. And though she was reluctant to tell it in front of them, there was little she could do, short of asking them to leave. And so, after a time, she answered, “The Earl returned to the Indian camp after being gone for several years and when he came back, he demanded I return with him to England.”

“Ah,” the King said. “And what did the Earl tell you?”

“He said that my grandfather had died and I was needed at home. He said I could stay with my father’s people if we were not welcomed back into this country at once.”

King William stared at her, squinting his eyes so that he might see her better. At last, he asked, “When was this?”

“Oh, it was several years ago,” Estrela answered. “Probably as many as six or seven years ago.”

Old King William rubbed his chin. He motioned one of his ministers forward. “Why,” he asked the man in question, “have I not been presented with this young lady before now?”

The dignitary gave the King a blank look and said, “Moment,” to confer with the Duke of Colchester and returning, bent back toward his King, and murmured, “The lady was presented a few months ago, Your Majesty. You were ill at the time and Queen Adelaide received the lady.”

The King nodded. He brushed the man away with the wave of his hand, then motioned him back. “Go awaken and bring to me at once Lord Chamberlain.”

“But, Your Majesty, he—”

“At once!”

The dignitary nodded and backing away, signaled two servants toward him.

And old King William patted the young lady’s hand, saying, “Sit right there now. You so closely resemble my dear niece, Charlotte, it is a pleasure to behold you. Here now, what was that? We will receive the Indians and then we shall talk some more.”

And when Estrela murmured, “Yes, Your Majesty,” the King simply smiled, muttering, “Exactly so, my dear, exactly so.”

A raven landed on the stone ledge just outside the darkened room. Its cawing grated on the nerves of the room’s only occupant, the man whose willowy figure shadowed the wall.

Damn nuisance is what they are, damned birds.

He paced over to the window and, throwing it suddenly open, knocked the bird from its perch.

A cawing protest was heard in response and then nothing.

The man chuckled, but the laugh didn’t sound in the least infectious, there being a deep, menacing quality in it.

Foiled. Stopped at every turn. Damned Indian. If it weren’t for the Indian, the girl would have been dead long ago.

The man drew a deep breath. Oh, what he did for England, for his precious Dutch Netherlands.

Was there anyone as patriotic as he?

And what had he seen tonight?

The girl talking with the King?

The man paced back to the table where he stopped to pull on his gloves. Then, he began the chore of meticulously measuring out the white substance it had taken him so long to concoct, being careful not to spill any of the powder on himself. Finished at last, he emptied the whole thing into the small earthenware bottle, where he shook it with wine, smiling to himself as he sat back, admiring his work.

He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of it until recently.

This was so much simpler.

It would be easy.

It would be effective.

And no one, not this simple slip of a girl, nor her Indian friends, could interfere with him. At long last, he need never worry about the merger of Belgian and English forces again.

The man laughed, only this time there was no raven remaining outside to echo the sound. Not a caw, not even the sound of flapping wings. Nothing.

The raven had fled.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Black Bear came to her.

The hour was late, the party having lasted well into the night.

He stood in the shadows of the room, hidden from view, watching her as she went about her nightly toiletry. He stared and he stared. Dare he believe it? Was she truly his at last? He shut his eyes, then opened them wide. Yes, what was between them was good.

She looked beautiful in her white, flannel gown, which flowed out behind her as she moved. Her pale hair shone as though with its own light in the darkened room, the candlelight from her bedside table accentuating the silvery strands of it. She bent now to unbraid that hair, and Black Bear swallowed, the action sounding loud to his own ears. Yes, their love was good.

He took a heavy breath.

He had spent the remainder of the evening with her, together with the King. That man had talked to Waste Ho endlessly while Black Bear had stood off to the side, listening.

The King had tried to speak with the Indians, but after a few words, with little between them in common, the King had once again turned to Waste Ho, and the two of them had talked endlessly about her early life, about her life with the Indians, about the long, lost Earl, whom the King had known personally.

The evening had gone quickly.

His attention was pulled back to the present as she stepped across the room. She flounced into bed, lying still for a moment until she straightened up and grabbed a fluffy pillow. “Well,” she said, speaking toward the shadows, “are you just going to stand there and watch or are you coming to bed with me?”

Black Bear didn’t respond.

“Black Bear, I—”

“M’lady.” It was Anna at her door. “Please excuse the late hour. The royal physician is here to see you.”

“Physician? I didn’t ask for a physician.”

“I know, M’lady. He is here to give you medicine to sleep. The King has ordered it.”

“The King has ordered…I see,” Estrela said. “Well, as you can tell, I am not fit to receive anyone at the moment. Please ask him to give you the medicine with instructions and let him understand that I will be happy to take his medicine before I retire.”