"Yes. A simple and straightforward request, on the face of it. Underneath, something vastly different. If I refuse, I undermine the true church of which I am the primate. But if I accept, I must limit that same church. I must agree-acquiesce, at least-to limits I have never heretofore accepted."
"And?"
"And… I don't know yet, not for sure. But I think I will finally agree. Because, in the end, I don't believe I really have any choice. Whether I like it or not."
Wentworth nodded. "No, I don't believe you do. Any more than I do."
Silence, again, for another minute. Then Laud asked: "What do you propose to do, then?"
"I have no idea, at the moment. My thoughts have gone everywhere for the past weeks-and come back as if they'd never gone. I even contemplated for a time releasing Oliver from the Tower and helping him overthrow the dynasty."
Laud's eyes were practically protruding. "You must be joking."
"Oh, no. I gave it quite serious thought. But what would be the point? He failed once; why would he succeed now? The goal was unobtainable in the first place, insofar as he ever had a clear goal in mind."
For a moment, his gaze grew unfocused. "It would be quite fascinating, you know, to be able to speak to that man. Not the man in his early thirties named Oliver Cromwell who sits this moment in a dungeon, but the man he became in that other universe, a quarter of a century from now. The lord protector of England, in his late fifties. What had he learned? What did he regret? What would he do otherwise, could it do it over again?"
The gaze came back into focus; a very keen one, in fact. "A fancy, you'll say. But is it? Are we not-you and I-in a position every bit as fanciful? Two dead men-my head rolling off a block on Tower Hill on May the twelfth of 1641, and yours in the same place on the tenth of January, not four years later-who are even this moment speaking to each other nonetheless. As if two severed heads on a mantelpiece were to be having a conversation."
"Oh, that's…"
"Yes, I know. Fanciful."
"I was going to say, 'silly.' "
"That, too, I suppose. But the substance remains. We are not in much different a position than two men who have a chance to relive their lives. What we chose once, we do not need to choose again."
"Yes, true enough-but it doesn't make our current choices any easier or less uncertain. And, for me at least, what shakes my resolve is not my knowledge of errors made in another universe, or a life that might have been. What shakes my resolve-all my certainties, except that I believe in Him-is what God did in this world."
Laud rose from his chair. Almost sprang from it. "It's none of that, Thomas! It's the Ring of Fire itself that my brain cannot wrap itself around. Let the papists prattle about 'God's hidden purpose' all they want. Let the Calvinists do the same. The fact remains. For the first time since the Resurrection, the Lord moved His hand so powerfully and so visibly that any man can see it. The first undoubted miracle in sixteen hundred years. Why?"
"I don't know."
"Of course you don't. None of us do. But He did. That, whatever else, can neither be questioned nor denied."
He fell back into the chair, collapsing as quickly as he came out it. "We ignore the deed at our great peril. I am uncertain of most things, now. But of that, I am not uncertain at all."
Again, silence.
"So. What will you do?" the archbishop asked the minister.
"I don't know. I simply know that it cannot go on like this."
Wentworth glanced at the window, and saw that the sun had set. He hadn't noticed earlier, because of the grayness of the day outside and the light cast by the lamps in Laud's chamber.
"I must be off. The captain I entrusted with the task is a capable one, but I'd best make sure there any no unforeseen problems."
Laud nodded heavily, but said nothing.
When he reached the door, a thought came to Wentworth. Half-smiling, he turned back. "You, on the other hand, should have-just now-answered your own question."
The archbishop looked up. "Eh?"
"The question of the bishop. As you said yourself, God moved His hand. That being so, how can you refuse to send a bishop to that very place He did the deed, when his presence is requested from there?"
For a moment, Laud looked alarmed. Then, smiled-and quite cheerfully. "Why, yes. That's very nicely put, Thomas. My thanks, indeed. It would seem to border on apostasy, wouldn't it? Can't have that."
Chapter 18
Between the nature of his assignment and the day's weather, Captain Anthony Leebrick was in a foul mood. With his usual imperturbability, he hadn't let any of it show; certainly not to his own soldiers and not even to any of the royal party, not even the coachmen. But when he saw the first elements of a Trained Band moving out of a side street to block Tyburn Hill Road, he finally lost his temper.
"Oh, God's blood!" he snarled. "Not today, lads. I'm in no mood for it!"
He wouldn't have been, even if the sun was shining. Under these conditions, with a sleet coming on top of the past few days' thaw turning every road in the city into a mess of half-frozen mud, he had more than enough to worry about.
The horses were skittish already, as large animals always are when the footing is treacherous. That was even true-especially true, perhaps-of the horses hauling the royal carriages. Where a sensible and level-headed farmer or tradesman who needed to haul a heavy wagon would have selected horses for the purpose who were sturdy and placid beasts, kings and queens and high noblemen were far more likely to select them for their appearance. And, indeed, the eight steeds pulling the king and queen's conveyance were a fine-looking group, and even matched for color. So were the ones pulling the carriage behind it, which held the royal children and their nursemaids and nannies. But they were very far from the sort of animals Leebrick wanted to rely on to carry the royal party to Oxford under bad weather conditions in the middle of winter.
He'd made an attempt this morning to persuade King Charles to postpone the journey until the weather cleared. But the king had been adamant, and the queen even more so. They were convinced that London was so infested with disease that the risk of remaining for another day or two was unacceptable. Henrietta Maria had even started shrieking at Leebrick.
Fine for her, of course, to ride through sleet in a sheltered carriage. Fine, at least, in terms of her immediate comfort. Leebrick was quite certain it had never once occurred to Her Majesty that the driver and coachmen-and the horses-were going to be miserable and doing their jobs under terrible conditions. More to the point, that their ability to do their jobs in the first place might very well affect her own well-being.
So be it. The queen of England was well known for many things. Good sense had never been one of them.
About the only consolation the weather was giving him was that the sleet wasn't so heavy that everyone on the road couldn't look over and see the gallows alongside Tyburn Hill. Great heavy things, too, they were-a three-beam affair on three legs, for when they had a batch to hang at once. Leebrick glared at the Trained Band taking up positions across the road ahead of him, imagining several of their commanders swinging from the scaffold.
His anger was due to the moment, not the general situation. Ever since the earl of Strafford had brought a large number of mercenary companies from the continent to impose iron royal rule over England, there had been frequent clashes between the mercenary companies and London's long-established militia. For the most part, however, aside from the initial period, it had been a reasonably good-natured business. The earl had been careful to give the assignment of controlling London to companies like Leebrick's own, whose soldiers were almost all Englishmen-many of them from the same plebeian neighborhoods in London that were the stronghold of the Trained Bands. A fair number of Leebrick's men, in fact, had once belonged to one of the Trained Bands themselves.