In Ashes Lie (40 page)

Had Antony’s heart been pounding less heavily, he might have snorted. Impression? No, it was a certainty: the Rump had no desire to give way, and let go of the power currently in their hands. It was the same disease that had gutted the Army, seducing the officers to aggrandize themselves, until their own soldiers abandoned them.

The general
had
to know that, or he would not be here. Monck had never been a political man, unlike his Army brethren Ireton and Cromwell; only the greatest distress at England’s situation had persuaded him to take action. Yet everyone seemed reluctant to condemn the Rump outright, as if speaking would make its faults real.

Hence the pounding of Antony’s heart. He felt as if he held a butterfly in the cage of his hands. If he could but persuade Monck...

He cleared his throat, and all eyes snapped to him. Betraying nothing of his inner tension, Antony said, “Promises to fill the vacant seats go only so far—especially when the Rump may pass whatever restrictions they like on who may elect, and who be elected. They have done it before, sir.”

Monck said mildly, “If those are the laws Parliament passes, then so be it.”

Frustration welled in Antony’s throat. Monck had gotten this far by moving one careful step at a time; were he less attentive to practicalities, he might have been checked in Scotland by his own disloyal officers. But the general put his own house in order before moving south, and had held to that pattern ever since, addressing concerns as they arose.

It was a strength, but also a weakness. When looking to the future, his vision stopped at next week. “Please allow me to remind you that they have set no date for their own dissolution, nor do they seem likely to do so. What else is that but a perpetual Parliament? We must have a
succession
of Parliaments, as is meant to be.”

“And so I have advised them,” Monck agreed.

“But what if they ignore it? They are not representative, sir; they are the remnant left after the greatest affront to privilege and liberty this realm has ever seen.” Antony looked not just to Monck now, but to the Lord Mayor and his fellow aldermen—some of them victims of similar interference in the government of London. “The
only
legitimate authority in this land is that elected twenty years ago: the full Parliament, such as has not perished in the interim.”

By the finer points of law, it had never gone away. Back in Pym’s day, they had maneuvered Charles into signing an Act that Parliament could not be dissolved save by its own will. From the original purge to Cromwell’s ejection of the Rump at the start of the Protectorate, through the myriad of upheavals since then, that longest of Parliaments had, in legal terms, never ended.

Monck folded his hands on the table before him. “You mean the readmission of the secluded members.”

“Forgive me, Sir Antony,” Alleyn broke in, “but it seems to me that you speak in your own self-interest—as you were one of those purged.”

“I speak in the interests of England,” Antony said, glaring at the Lord Mayor. “Unless you wish to argue that the Army had the rightful authority to force us out, then you must admit that seat is mine by law—for the laws barring me from it were passed
after
my seclusion. And if you wish to argue in the Army’s favor, then by all means, say so.”

Alleyn flushed and mumbled something unintelligible, but clearly negative. Enough men in the room had bristled at the mention of the Army that only a madman would have tried to argue Antony’s point.

Addressing Monck once more, Antony said, “Sir, I beg you. You are Parliament’s support—not the Rump, but the freely elected Commons of England. You have said so many times. Use your influence to return us to our places, and you shall have the succession of Parliaments you seek. But I tell you with certainty: the Rump will never vote for the end of their own power.”

He held the man’s gaze with every word he spoke, and prayed as he did so. Antony had come so very close to asking Lune for aid; a few well-crafted dreams would be enough to sway the man’s sympathies to their side. But Monck had resisted tearing down the gates and trespassing on the rights of the City; though he had finally given in on those matters, his patience with the Rump was already near its end. He must make his decision freely, not constrained by faerie magic. Nothing else would be honest.

And honesty, as much as monarchy, must be restored in England.

“I will consider what you have said, Sir Antony,” the general told him. With that, Antony had to be content. But he saw doubt in the man’s eyes.

It may take him some days yet—but we have him.

Applause and cheers greeted the line of men as one of Monck’s captains led the way through the lobby of the Commons. Whether those watching were petitioners with business for the House, or whether news had gotten out of Monck’s plan, Antony could not guess; he, with the others, had been gathered since well before dawn at the general’s chambers in Whitehall. But either way, the onlookers roared their approval as the secluded members marched through.

It had the feel of a triumphal procession. Prynne wore a baskethilted sword that looked as old as he, and waved vigorously at men he knew, until the sheathed blade tangled the legs of Sir William Waller behind him, and he had to attend to its management.

Dodging Waller’s stumble, Thomas Soame grinned at Antony and said, “The place seems smaller than I remember.”

“That’s because we scarce have room to breathe.” Up ahead, the soldiers had stopped at the bar to the House: a nice observation of propriety. The secluded members filed past them and found the chamber empty. “Do you think they know we are coming?”

“The Rumpers? I hope not. Bit of a surprise for them when they find out, and I confess feeling some glee at the thought.”

Hesilrige at least knew; he and his minions had an unpleasant surprise when they came to call on Monck that morning. But as current members began to trickle in and found their old companions in their seats, their reactions were more than sufficient to entertain Soame.

Antony left his friend to enjoy their discomfiture, and settled more agreeably into his seat. Monck might delude himself that they had come to establish England once more as a commonwealth; at the very least he struggled to avoid war. In that latter, Antony would be more than happy to oblige him. But the time had come for a return to the old constitution.

The House of Commons. The House of Lords. And the King upon his throne.

England would be a kingdom once more.

Convincing all her ladies to leave her in peace took some effort. Some had been with Lune in exile, and some had not, but to a lady, they were all determined to behave as if no disruption had ever occurred—which meant they stuck to her like burrs, as if sheer intensity of service could make up for long deprivation. She had to speak quite sharply before the last of them understood that when she said she wished to be alone, she meant true solitude.

With that achieved at last, she sat in one of her antechambers, hands playing over the keyboard of her virginals. She had no skill at the instrument: no expression such as mortals could evoke, no faerie entrancement, not even physical expertise. But it was new to her, and the challenge was diverting.

Enough so that when the door opened, unheralded, letting Antony into the chamber, she offered him an easy smile. He held a folded sheet in one hand—no small scrap of paper, but fine vellum, sealed with wax. Lune could not see the impression from where she sat, but a ribbon dangled from the seal; it was something formal. “What is that?”

“A letter I fear will damage your good spirits,” he said, extending it to her. “From Nicneven.”

The vellum perched loosely on her slack hand as Lune stared at him, taken utterly by surprise. Not
once
since her accession had the Queen of Fife deigned to communicate directly. Why now? And why did Antony have it?

“As to the second,” he said when she asked him, “it is because I found Valentin Aspell pacing outside your door, trying to devise a means of presenting it to you that would not result in him running for his life. I offered to hazard myself instead. But for why she has written to you—we must read it to know.”

She did not
want
to know; she wanted to throw the letter in the fire unread. Instead Lune settled into a chair by the hearth and cracked the seal with her thumb.

The missive was addressed to Lune alone, but that was no surprise; Nicneven would hardly wish to acknowledge a mortal as her co-ruler. She turned so Antony could read it with her, from the chair he pulled to her side. The script inside was sharp and unadorned, and its message unmistakably clear.

“Heaven and earth,” Antony said. “He is not in Fife?”

For his betrayal of our trust and goodwill, we lay claim to the life of Ifarren Vidar. Should you or any of your court apprehend him, surrender him to us at once, or we shall once more make war upon your realm, and destroy it utterly.

A breathless laugh escaped Lune, born more of disbelief than amusement. “It would appear not. And for good reason.”

During the long years in Berkshire, they had tried to encourage Nicneven’s disaffection with Vidar. It seemed she no longer needed prompting. Vidar was not in Fife; he had squandered any goodwill there by his failure in London.

Then where
was
he?

Antony sat back in his chair and raised his eyebrows. “Well, that is a weight off your shoulders, I should imagine. Let the Gyre-Carling dispose of him.”

“She must find him first,” Lune murmured.

The Prince knew her too well; he gave her a curious look, leaning forward once more. “You do not seem pleased.”

Lune folded the letter carefully, along the original lines. The seal was too battered now to make out—presuming it was Nicneven’s at all. Did the Gyre-Carling often send letters? Or had she borrowed someone’s seal, in an attempt to follow civilized standards? “It is blackmail, Antony.”

“But it would buy the security you have sought all this time.”

“Would it?” The words came out sharp. “Nicneven despises this place. She will not cease just because I help her kill Vidar. But that is not the point, Antony: the point is the threat itself.”

He paused, then said, “You do not wish to be seen bowing to it. I understand. But no one knows of it save us two. Aspell did not read the letter. If Vidar were found quietly, and sent north—”

“You do
not
understand.” Lune rose from her chair in an angry burst, the letter crumpling in her hand. “She threatens
my realm.
Not myself, not my subjects; the Onyx Hall itself. The very foundation of my sovereignty. If I bow to that—” Even speaking the words made her bones shiver. It was the same instability she had felt when they cut the head from Charles in King Street, the tremor that preceded the earthquake.

“If I bow to that,” Lune repeated, almost too faintly for herself to hear, “then I will be Queen no more.”

Antony shifted behind her, uneasy. “How so?”

She shook her head. “I—Sun and Moon. I cannot explain it, but I
feel
it. Beyond question. I know I ceded the palace to Vidar when I fled, but that was not the same...” Her breath caught. Lune swallowed painfully. “It would be as if, in his trial, Charles had renounced the divine, in order to spare his life. Or no—that is not it at all—” Frustration closed off her throat. She had never been a philosopher, to seek out the reasons for faerie customs, much less to explain them to others. “I do not have the words. But if I allow Nicneven to use my realm to force me to my knees, I will
lose
that realm. Likely to her.”

Lune turned and found Antony now standing as well, confused and worried in equal measure. “We must find him first,” she said, her determination hardening with every word. “Find him first, and dispose of him quietly, so that he cannot threaten us again. And if Nicneven does not like it—then we shall answer her as befits a Queen.” And she flung the letter into the fire.

The City had burst into bloom, the warm spring sun calling out all the colors and gaiety the long, cold winter had suppressed—a winter that had, in some senses, lasted for more than ten years. Everyone wore their brightest, and banners hung from every jetty and balcony along the processional route. The fountains in the streets ran with wine. The roar was deafening, but above it all, trumpets rang out in brazen triumph as the procession made its way up London Bridge.

At the heart of all the pageantry was a tall, smiling man, his black hair hanging in thick curls past his shoulders, receiving with benevolent goodwill all the accolades of the City his father had fled nearly twenty years before. Antony knew well that Charles Stuart, second of that name, had no particular illusions about the circumstances of his restoration, but he was willing to accept the fiction thus offered. Indeed, the King laughed that it must be his own fault that had kept him away, for everyone so clearly desired his return. These smiles and jests were the bandages that would hold England’s wounds closed—to heal in time, they hoped.

“God save the King!” echoed from every window, when not long before those same voices had sworn never to accept a single person at the head of their state, be he King or Lord Protector. But here came this merry man, thirty years old today, with splendid display the likes of which had not been seen since Puritan rule began, and it was excuse enough for rejoicing. The trouble could come later.

Tears prickled in Antony’s eyes. So little of it made sense! The struggle now ended was not the one they had begun so long ago. The issues that troubled men back then were all but forgotten now. Few concerned themselves anymore about the Anglican episcopacy, or ship money, or control of the militia; though the New Model Army was far more dangerous a weapon, Parliament had ceded it to the King without a quibble. Half the names that led the fight twenty years ago were dead now, or retired from the field of political battle. After so many wars and risings, the restoration of the monarchy was achieved not by arms, but by a few simple votes in the Commons.