In Ashes Lie (32 page)

“And let the Army’s council of officers consolidate its hold over England?” Antony said sharply. “I will lie dead in a gutter before I let that happen.”

“But Richard is the Protector’s
son.
Their loyalty to Oliver—”

“Is not an inheritance to be passed on in a will,” Elizabeth said. Ellin fell silent, conceding her greater knowledge of the family. “Oliver was an inspiring man, passionate in his convictions, with the capacity to carry others into his visions, and moreover he was a hero to the soldiery. Richard is all but a stranger to them.”

Antony nodded and took the chair next to Ellin, hoping no one guessed that the weakness of his knees betrayed him into it. “At best he will have six of the Council of State on his side, perhaps seven—and very little of the Army. What’s more, it won’t be long before he has to call a Parliament.”

Startled, Kate said, “Why?”

“Why does any ruler call a Parliament?” Ellin asked ironically. “Because he needs money.”

Lady Dysart claimed the remaining chair; Kate moved to settle on a cushion, but Ellin rose and convinced her through an argument of gestures to have his seat. The young man leaned against the desk instead, slouching his length so as not to loom over them. By the time this dance was done, Antony had his strength back, and asked their hostess, “What do you think will be the reaction abroad?”

He did not have to specify what he meant, and in fact rarely did; even here, in this safe house, they spoke obliquely when they could. The responses from the European states would matter, but what she had knowledge of was a much smaller group: the Sealed Knot, the alliance of exiled English noblemen who worked to restore Charles Stuart, second of that name, to his throne.

Elizabeth’s mouth quirked. “When they hear? The same as it is now, but stronger. Mordaunt will want a rising, and Hyde will argue against.”

“Hyde is right,” Antony said. “The worst thing we could do right now is give the Army something to fight. The people are tired of military control, taxation to support a standing force, and soldiers at free quarter. The longer we go without a war, the more disaffected they will become.” He heard in his own words an echo of the debate over Nicneven, and tried not to shiver.
I must live as if I might not drop dead at any moment.

Ellin raised one expressive eyebrow. “But Charles will not claim his throne by neglect alone. He needs soldiers to control London and other key points—which means he needs a port to land them in, and someone must acquire that for him. Not to mention ships to get the forces across.”

The ships would have to come from France or Spain, but Antony agreed with Hyde that for the King to be restored by an outside power would poison opinion against him. Which was a philosophical concern backed by a practical one: until Europe stopped fighting itself, from Portugal to Sweden and everywhere in between, no one would spare any time for a King who only ever reigned in exile.

“No rising has succeeded yet,” Kate said. “And before you tell me, Mr. Ellin, that only the last one ever succeeds—yes, your thoughts are that transparent—let me remind you that they have been miserable failures, every one. Even when Scotland gave young Charles its support, he ended up hiding from soldiers in a Staffordshire oak tree. I doubt he is in any hurry to try again.”

Ellin spread his hands in florid submission. “Then what do we propose to do?”

“Wait,” Antony said.

“I had hoped for rather more than that.”

“Wait for Parliament,” Antony clarified. “I do not know everyone who will be elected to it, but I expect Hesilrige, Vane, and others from my own days there. I have ways of setting them at each other’s throats, and Parliament against the Army.”

Ellin frowned. “To what end? Other than pure chaos, which I’m sure you will achieve magnificently.”

“Chaos is what we need, at least for a time. The Protectorate is not popular, and will be less so without Oliver Cromwell to hold it together. The Army is despised. The Commonwealthsmen are passionate, but they’ve lost the people; men are tired of godly reformers prying into every corner of their lives and outlawing their pleasures. And they cannot present a united front, because they do not agree half so much as they think they do, and scarce one in a hundred can see past the glowing radiance of their proposed community of saints to the practical considerations of how to govern a country. What we
cannot
let happen is the officers of the Army claiming the little power that yet remains out of their hands, and turning all of England into their servants. To that end, I will sow what chaos I must, so that when they reach their hands forth they find nothing in their grasp but smoke.”

Where the vitality for that impassioned speech came from, he didn’t know; it surprised even him. Judging by the expressions that faced him, he was not the only one. Once he had recovered his jaw, Ellin began to clap quietly.

Antony flushed and looked away. Kate laid one hand on his, and kept it there until he met her eyes, whereupon she smiled. Elizabeth spoke, perhaps to cover his embarrassment. “If you are right about the Parliament, I can think of others we might see elected, to work from within.”

“Not my husband,” Kate said, before Antony could identify the knot of emotions that formed in him at the thought. “He cannot be known so openly.”

“They would not have me regardless,” he said, taking his hand from hers. “All who were purged before the trial will still be disabled from sitting.”

Elizabeth waved their concerns away. “I was not thinking of Sir Antony. But I will do what I can to foster others.”

“And to keep Mordaunt on a leash,” Ellin added. “I don’t fancy bending knee to the Army.”

Antony watched soberly as they worked out the details. This was not something he ever had a gift for, this underhand work—not like Lune did. He had relied on Ben Hipley for precisely that reason. But it was the only tool left in his hand. If he was to restore either his King or his Queen, he must work from the shadows.

And pray for the day when he could live once more in the light.

In all the long ages of her life, Lune had seen her designs thwarted, her achievements overthrown, her hopes trodden into the mud. Every time, she clawed her way back up again, rebuilding that which had broken, and she was determined to do so again.

She was determined, but she could not see how.

Those who kept by her in her exile were loyal, but they were not enough to overthrow Vidar. Lune had no great enchantments she could bring to bear against him, no army sufficient to crush him, and no means of dividing him from his allies, except to wait and hope that Nicneven’s growing fury accomplished that for her. They had seeded information about Vidar’s involvement with the execution of the Queen of Scots, and it seemed to be doing some good. But every day spent waiting put Antony’s life, and the security of her realm, in greater danger.

Antony distracted himself from it by throwing himself all the more fervently into the Royalist cause, as if determined to accomplish the restoration of that monarchy before he died. Lune wished him all the good fortune in the world, but she could no more see how to put Charles Stuart on his throne than herself on her own. They had this much in common, she and the mortal King: despite all the divisions among their enemies, neither of them could muster the force necessary to take back what was theirs by right.

The thought brought a bitter smile to her face as she paced the rustic chamber Wayland had given over to her use. The Almighty could anoint Charles as King, and the Onyx Hall could acknowledge Lune as Queen, but those rightful claims did them not the slightest bit of good, without the strength to enforce them.

She crumpled the letter in her hand—word from Antony, of the dissolution of Richard Cromwell’s disastrous Parliament—and flung it from her, pivoting with such violence that her heel sank into the soft dirt of the floor. She found Irrith standing a mere pace away and staggered, off balance with surprise and the uneven footing.
These wild fae move too damned quietly.

Irrith at least had the decency to ignore her clumsiness. Clad in leather, a short bow in her hand, the sprite said hesitantly, “I—the moon is full tonight, and partially in eclipse. I thought you might like to hunt, and breathe fresh air.”

Hunting was not a pastime Lune often engaged in, but tonight of all nights she felt like killing something, if only for the brief illusion of victory. And if she could not be in London, at least she could walk free under the moon, and try to find some solace in its beauty.

Though there would be pain in that, too. It was under an eclipse that the Onyx Hall was created, by a mortal and a faerie.

“Lu—ah, your Majesty?”

Irrith’s hesitant query made Lune realize she was staring unblinkingly at the sprite. Lune startled, and gave voice to the thought that had seized her. “I have been as blind as Vidar.”

“What?”

“Nicneven thinks me tainted by my bond to a mortal city,” Lune said. For the first time in more months than she cared to remember, laughter bubbled up inside her, carrying with it the bright spark of hope. “Well, if I am, let me embrace it. Since faerie strength will not regain my throne for me, I shall see what mortals can do. Where is your King?”

Irrith’s face was a study in bafflement as she tried to keep up with Lune’s erratic speech. “In his forge—”

Lune was on her way out of the chamber even before the sprite answered. She could no more muster an army from the mortals than she could from Wayland’s court, and however much she hated Vidar, she would not try to unleash Puritan faith against him. But there were other possibilities.

No one guarded the smithy door. Lune swept through and found Wayland stripped to the waist, swinging his hammer in steady rhythm, hammering out a semicircular shape.

He cannot be entirely fae.
The piece in his tongs was an iron horseshoe, and even standing so near turned Lune’s stomach. The wound in her shoulder throbbed in sympathy. From a safe distance she raised her voice. “I beg a moment of your time.”

The blacksmith King quenched the shoe in a wave of steam. “Yes?”

“You have told me you cannot supply warriors sufficient to even the balance,” Lune said, drawing as close as she dared. “Will you supply us with weapons instead?”

Wayland laid the iron aside and gave her a considering look. “I could.”

Lune quelled her surge of triumph by force of will, letting only a fierce smile through.
The battle is not won yet. But for the first time, I think it may happen.
“Then here is what I would ask of you.”

“To the Rump!”

Antony did not lift his jack of ale in response to Ellin’s pledge. The young man raised an eyebrow. “The Protectorate is staggering to a well-deserved death, the Commons kicked out six years ago is sitting again, and yet you do not drink. I know you think the quality of the ale here has declined, but you cannot even bring yourself to one sip?”

“Not for the Rump.” One of Prynne’s friends had come up with the contemptuous name for the reduced Commons left behind after the Purge, and now half of London used it.

Ellin sighed. “It’s better than the alternative. When the Army forced our not-so-beloved Lord Protector to dissolve Parliament, I thought it meant rule by the sword for sure.”

The same Army that had, on Cromwell’s orders, illegally dissolved the Rump six years before, ending the Commonwealth and beginning the Protectorate. It was just one more upheaval perpetrated by the same fanatical men who had held England at the point of a sword since before the King’s execution.

Antony thought he kept his face impassive, but Ellin suddenly paled and reached across the table. The common room of the Angel Inn was hot with candlelight, and busy with trade; sweat pricked Antony’s skin in the stifling air, but he felt cold. Ellin pushed back the cuff of his sleeve, feeling for his pulse. “Your heart is racing, and you’re feverish. Sir Antony—”

Antony pulled his hand back. “I do not need your physicking.”

“You need
someone’s.
I’m not fully trained; so be it. I can give you the best names in London.” Ellin’s mouth twisted. “I would send you to France, if I thought you would go. What ails you, I have no idea, but man—it is
killing
you.”

The anger in his gut had turned to sick desire.
Too long away.
Antony shoved back from the table. “I know my medicine, and will go to it now.”

The ironical face stared up at him, stripped of any humor. “Will you not let a friend help?”

Was John Ellin a friend? Lady Dysart had brought him into their conspiratorial circle two years ago. Long enough for Antony to know him as more than just another hotheaded young man enchanted by Royalist ideas; Ellin had passion, but also common sense. Antony trusted him more than any man since Ben Hipley had died—but that was not the same thing as a friend.

A wave of dizziness broke over him, and only experience kept him from staggering. “You do help. But this is something I must handle on my own.”

“And you’ll not let me help you to your horse—I know better than to offer.” Ellin stood and gripped his arm. “But have a care for yourself. I don’t fancy having your wife on me for letting you fall in a ditch somewhere.”

Antony managed a smile. “No ditches, I promise.”

The cool, dark air outside cleared his head enough for him to walk more or less steadily behind the inn.
No ditches—but a hole in the ground.

Bare, skeletal stumps thrust up from the soil where once a thriving rosebush had stood, and the ground around them was torn. But the charms held, diverting attention from this spot, and so Antony knelt and laid his fingertips on one of the splintered branches. “The moon is in eclipse.”

The phrase was not his idea. But with the gift some fae had for mimicry, it wasn’t enough to give his name, and so some wit in Lune’s following had come up with a series of coded signals instead.