But perhaps it was time to end it. She knew his allies, his resources, his methods of communicating with Nicneven and Vidar. They were preparing for some final move, she had no doubt, to hamstring the treaty with Charles; civil war was not enough, when they could depose the King entirely. Leslic’s troublemakers would be crucial to their plans. What profit remained in keeping him at her side?
Very little. Perhaps none. And that meant that, at long last, the time had come to dispose of the golden Sir Leslic.
THE ANGEL INN, ISLINGTON: October 11, 1648
Antony’s shoulders ached with tension as he rode north out of the City. Peace stood so close he could taste it; all they needed was this treaty with the King, restoring him to his proper place. But if the Army and its Leveller supporters staged some rebellion, it might all yet fall apart again.
To forestall that, he worked with one hand in each world. During the day, he ate, breathed, and slept Parliamentary affairs, struggling alongside others to maintain a strong enough alliance to oppose the Army’s officers in the Commons: Henry Ireton, Oliver Cromwell, and all the rest.
At night, he turned to the faerie folk for help. And tonight, that meant riding to Islington.
On horseback, it took mere minutes to reach the Angel Inn. He had to bribe a guard to let him through Cripplegate; the curfew on the City was much more stringent than usual. Come daylight, though, he would need to be back in Westminster. He was missing a debate regardless, as once again the Commons ran late into the night.
His destination was not the Angel, but an enormous, tangled rosebush that stood behind it, resisting even the thought of being trimmed back. Antony concealed his horse in a stand of trees and crossed to the bush, which offered up one stubborn blossom, despite the dreary autumn chill. “Antony Ware,” he murmured into it, and reached into the leather purse he wore over his shoulder.
While he pulled a cloth bundle out, the branches shifted and wove themself into a thorn-studded archway over a set of battered steps leading downward. Treading carefully in the hollows worn by untold feet before his, Antony descended into the Goodemeades’ home.
Rosamund was waiting for him in the comfortable chamber below. “We heard your pigeon, my lord,” she said, offering him a curtsy. “I’d be happy to look at what you have.”
Fae had several advantages over mortals when it came to secret communication, among them the usefulness of pigeons. Antony had no need to tie a message to its leg; the sisters conversed with birds as easily as with him.
He unwrapped his bundle and held a small hunk of rye bread out to Rosamund. She had put on a glamour, making herself the height of a short woman, instead of a child. The brownie pinched off a bite and chewed it thoughtfully. “Hard to say,” she told him once she had swallowed, “but I fear you may be right. Shall we test it?”
Not in the house, certainly. They went back to the open air, and for safety’s sake into the trees, where his horse dozed—a more sensible creature than him. Rosamund folded her hands expectantly. Antony hesitated. “If our suspicions are correct—”
“I’ve lived through worse,” Rosamund told him stoutly. “Sing away, my lord.”
He would not sing; the brownie had offered herself up for enough without suffering his inability to carry a tune. Instead he spoke softly.
Once, right after he bound himself to the Onyx Court as Prince of the Stone, the words had fled his tongue, silenced by a faerie touch. Even now they did not come as naturally as they had in his boyhood. He had to exert his will to say, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
Rosamund was ready for it, and so she did not cry out. But she stiffened, and her entire body shook; and when it was done shaking, she was the size of a child again, and swaying on her feet. Antony caught her and lowered her gently to the cold dirt. His cloak, flung around her shoulders, made her look even tinier, but Rosamund gripped it gratefully.
“No,” she said in a valiant imitation of a light tone, “I don’t think it’s working.”
His prayer was a common one in the Church of England, nothing drawn from a more Puritan faith. But they did not have to look to such arcane causes for an explanation. “That bread,” he said grimly, “was passed on to Lewan Erle from one of Sir Leslic’s closest followers.”
The little hob’s normally pink cheeks were pale from more than moonlight. “She will never just throw him out. You’ve not been at court, my lord—too many people admire him, since he saved the Queen. Lune dares not be thought capricious, casting him down when he’s enjoyed so much favor. And she hesitates to scheme against him; it reminds her too much of Invidiana.”
The old Queen. Lune rarely spoke of her, but at times Antony felt as if her black shadow still darkened the court and all its doings. Even Lune herself—simply by her resolution not to be like her predecessor. “She will have to do something,” Antony said. “Others have seen their protections fail; they fear to go into the streets at all. Nicneven may have at last found a way to destroy everything the Onyx Court stands for.”
“Not just Nicneven,” Rosamund corrected him. “Vidar.”
“Yes, this ‘Lord of Shadows.’ ” The name twisted in his mouth, warped by anger for the damage the creature had done. Not just to the Onyx Court, but to the world above it; Antony would never know if civil war might have been avoided, had Vidar not taken every opportunity to deepen the bitterness and rancor that divided England from itself. “Lune speaks but little of him. Why such hatred between them?”
“I will tell you,” Rosamund said, “but not here.”
Reflexively, Antony glanced about, searching the nighttime woods. “Is someone watching?”
The brownie grinned with more of her usual cheer. “No, but I’m freezing my rump off. Come inside.”
He helped her to her feet, glad to see that smile return, and they went back down into the sheltering warmth. Gertrude was attending Lune at court, and so they had the comfortable home to themselves. Rosamund returned Antony’s cloak with thanks and stood warming her hands at the fire. “Vidar,” she told him, “was a lord in the old court.”
“One faithful to Invidiana?”
“Not in the least! He was ever searching for ways to sell her out to her enemies, and claim the throne for himself.”
Antony pulled off his gloves and rubbed his hands over his shortened hair. “So he envies her for doing what he could not.”
Rosamund frowned. “That, but also other things. We, er—used him at the end, when the overthrow came. And it made him very unwelcome among the other faerie Kings of England. Last we heard, he’d gone across the Channel and found a place in the Cour du Lys, where they do not love Lune either.”
But now he was in Scotland, and helping to destroy what he could not have. Always Scotland: the clashes there had precipitated Charles’s crisis nearly a decade ago, and now the Army was rabid to prevent the Presbyterian terms the Scots wanted in the treaty with the King. Though Ireland, to be fair, was an equally fruitful source of trouble.
Sighing, Antony rose and said, “And this trick with the bread is his latest treachery, by way of Sir Leslic. Clever. I can only hope that when I confirm it to Lune, she will rid herself of that snake, before he can harm us further.”