Rupert started at sight of the largest. “My brother… ach, Maurice!” he whispered. Then toward the smallest: “His Majesty.” For Charles was a tiny man, though he bore himself so erect, even now his dark handsomeness was so neatly groomed, that the fact did not stand forth. Rupert recognized others. Goring the villain, Digby the conniver, he thought flashingly, Eythin the greedy: what fine Cavaliers. I’d liefer have a bluff and honest Cromwell. No matter what one’s side in any strife, some allies would make better enemies… Well, there are dear Maurice and good Will Legge and my beloved ever-kindly kinsman—
“Is that thy brother?” Jennifer asked. “He looks fine indeed.”
He silenced her with a gesture which was the sole gentle thing about him. Voices rolled.
“Make never doubt, tomorrow they’ll attack,” Maurice was saying dully. “They’ll batter down our pitiful defense, as they have done to city after city. Thus Glastonbury will soon be sunk in fire, like any ship that flies the Stuart flag when pounced on by the Navy that was yours. They’ve cannon for’t—including most of ours.”
“Why did your Majesty insist we meet and rally hereabouts, upon a plain as flat as we’ve been beaten?” lamented Eythin.
Charles overlooked the insolence; it was born of desperation. “I know not,” he answered.
They stared at him. He gave them the least of smiles. “I had a thought… a dream… a sense… a murmur… a feeling here was right, and our last hope,” he said.
“A witch did brew that dream, your Majesty,” Digby mumbled.
Charles shook his head. “Nay, Puritans abhor the mildest magic, and any magic flees away from them, who will not own God also made the elves. Was it a sprite who sang within my sleep? I venture not to think it was a saint.”
“Whate’er it was, it lured us to our doom,” said Goring.
“Now, wait, that is not fair,” objected Legge. “Remember, sirs, we did hold council more than once between us, agreeing Somerset might not be best, but any other place was nigh as bad, so sorely are we hurt since Marston Moor. What have we truly lost by coming here?”
“The war,” snapped Eythin.
Goring formed a gallows laugh. “ ’Twas lost already. We are spooks hallooing’round awhile before the dawn—the winter dawn, our graves more snug than it.”
“What shall we do?” King Charles asked. “I hate to yield my sword, but more would hate to see this fine old town bombarded, fired, and plundered, uselessly.”
“Worse would be yielding up your royal person,” Maurice said.
The King winced. “How much more anguish is this carcass worth?”
“Whilst you’re alive and free, the cause is too,” Maurice declared. “How well I know, whose mother is your sister!”
“You are no walking rack to hang a crown on,” Legge added, “but the embodiment of countless hopes.”
Maurice glanced around the table. “If we’ve lost England, we’ve not lost the world,” he said. “We may yet get our King across the Channel. For that, we can’t stay in this rat-trap burgh. Let’s move, before the enemy can act”—he pointed at night and height—“to yonder hill. Dug in upon its crest, we can cast back a hundredfold assault.”
“Then lie besieged,” snorted Eythin. “They’ll thirst and starve us out.”
Maurice nodded. “Aye. But we will have bought those days, you know—mayhap to smuggle him away disguised; mayhap to raise the peasants in our aid and cut a seaward road like Xenophon; mayhap—I cannot tell. We’ll likely fail. But surely we will fail, attempting naught.”
Their eyes went to the King. For a space he stared at his fingers locked on the table before him. At last he sighed: “The prince has right. Ridiculous it is. Yet for the sake of folk who’ve trusted us, if God allow, we’ll raise our exile banner, that they may dream defeat will have an end.”
He rose, went to the window, stood gazing out with hands clasped behind his back. Most softly he spoke.
“There will be other times, my comrades. There will be a day of trumpets. This we must believe. Now when all flags guide corpses to the sea, and ships lie hollow on a smoking shore, broken of bone, and windy shadows weave a dark about tall widows turning whore to feed gashed children, I must say that more days shall remain than hobnailed victors thieve. And if our iron’s broken, there’s still ore—stones of our sharded cities lying free to sharpen it—and if you should perceive rust and the dimness in us, do it silently.”
The vision guttered out, and the fire beneath.
Rupert shouted into night: “We must away to England ere too late!”
“Too late for what?” fluted Ariel.
“To help, or die for him.”
XXII
Again it was night, but calm and warmer than before. The moon had just cleared the heights, yellow, an edge bitten out by that murk which lay everywhere on land. The bay and the waters beyond glimmered.
Five stood by that boat which had brought Jennifer. While it was still beached, its mast had been raised and sail unfurled.
“Here is the hour when we may start our flight,” Rupert said. “Let us embark. This day was long to wait.”
“ ’Twas far too short for me, that breath of peace, belike our last, we shared in beauty’s home,” the girl replied.
Hope jumped in him. “Thou’lt stay behind in safety, as I wish?”
“And let thee go?” She summoned a laugh. “Thou art a darling blockhead.”
“I fear she really must accompany,” Ariel said. “What feeble spells thou’st learnt can barely serve when there are moonbeams to uphold this craft she came here in, diminutive though ’tis. Thou’d’st not get far ere morning brought thee down, save that the presence of a virgin maid has always strengthened magic.”
“Well I know!” Rupert snapped. “Stop babbling—” His tone changed. “Nay, I’m sorry, Ariel.”
“I would that I could help thee further, Prince.” The elf’s wings quivered, glow and glitter against forest blackness. “But far from home—surrounded by cold iron—”
“Thou’st aided us beyond our giving thanks.” With infinite care, Rupert bent over and clasped the minute hand in his enormous one.
“Because’tis for the Old Way thou hast drawn thy sword: the wholeness of the living world. Farewell.”
“Farewell.”—“Farewell.”—“God keep thee well.” Words went caressing among them. Ariel fluttered aloft to touch Will’s brow and brush lips across Jennifer’s.
“Good-by,” the dragoon said gruffly to Caliban. “Enjoy tha brandy I’ve bequeathed.”
The monster didn’t hear. His shaggy head never stirred from staring at the maiden, though the rest of him shook with pain. “Thou never wilt come back again, Miranda?” he rasped.
“Only in dreams, I fear,” she answered. Moonlight caught sudden tears. “But always, always I will remember thee, dear Caliban.”
She ran forward, kissed him, and fled to the boat. Rupert and Will had already boarded. The prince stood holding Prospero’s staff on high, the book laid open across his other arm. As Jennifer sprang into the hull, he called: “Our spell is cast; the unseen tides now flow to bear us off. Zain. I conjure thee, rise!”
Silently, smoothly, the vessel lifted. Will looked downward, gulped, squeezed his eyes tight shut, and folded himself as small as possible in the bottom. Jennifer gasped once, then leaned out and waved as long as she had sight of the island. Rupert stood before the mast, staff aimed at the North Star.